Clegg’s potential defeat puts kibosh on another coalition

Deputy Prime Minister and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg looks set to lose his seat in Sheffield Hallam according to new constituency polling by Lord Ashcroft – with potentially huge consequences for David Cameron.

Labour are laying siege to the South Yorkshire seat knowing that, without Clegg, surviving Lib Dem MPs would be unlikely to enter another pact with Cameron’s Conservatives – in the event that the Tories come out of the 7 May election as the largest party.

Clegg had a 15,000 majority in 2010 – the biggest majority in any Lib Dem seat. That should have made him safe, even with the national collapse in the Lib Dem vote.

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But Labour’s Oliver Coppard is two points ahead of Clegg according to Ashcroft’s latest poll – which amounts to a swing from Lib Dem to Labour of nearly 20 per cent since 2010.

One obvious reason for Clegg’s declining popularity is that Hallam is home to one of the country's highest student populations - 17.3 per cent of the electorate - and most will have started university in 2012 just as the £9,000 tuition fees were introduced despite the Lib Dems’ promise not to allow it.

But Labour have another trump card - their large pool of activists in Sheffield and the rest of South Yorkshire. Hallam is the only non-Labour seat in a region with 14 MPs and almost a million voters.