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Nick Clegg to lead Liberal Democrats

— PHOTO: AP

The new leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrat Party Nick Clegg, with his wife Miriam in London, on Tuesday.

LONDON: The Liberal Democrats, who hope to play the “king-maker” in the event of a hung Parliament at the next general election, got a new leader on Wednesday — their third in two years — when they elected Nick Clegg, MP, whose telegenic looks and pro-market views have prompted comparisons with Tory leader David Cameron with critics labelling him a “Cameron clone.”

Mr. Clegg (40) defeated fellow MP Chris Huhne by a razor-thin majority to succeed Menzies Campbell who resigned in October following a controversy over his age as many his colleagues felt that, at 66,he was too old to lead the party. A former journalist and member of the European Parliament, Mr. Clegg is not only the youngest Liberal Democrats leader in the party’s recent history but also younger than the leaders of the other two main parties.

In his first public remarks after being elected, he said he wanted the Liberal Democrats to be the future of British politics.

“I have one sole ambition — to change Britain to make it the liberal country people want it to be,” he said alluding, perhaps, to the climate of xenophobia and the increasing erosion of human rights as a result of the government’s tough anti-terror laws. The narrow margin of Mr. Clegg’s victory indicated a split in the party.

Mr Clegg won on the strength of the support he got from MPs, while the party’s rank-and-filed was understood to have voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Huhne.

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