Jeremy Thorpe 1,166. After the 1966 election, Grimond confided to senior party officials that he wished soon to step down from the leadership. Thorpe was now the senior Liberal MP after Grimond, and the party's highest-profile member, although Timothy Beaumont, chairman of the party's organising committee, noted in his diary: "I am pretty certain that he has little popularity within the Parliamentary Party". When Grimond finally resigned, on 17 January 1967, an election to replace him was arranged to take place within 48 hours, leaving little time for manoeuvring. The 12 Liberal MPs formed the whole electorate; after the first ballot, Thorpe
Jeremy Thorpe proposed to attend the 1979 Liberal assembly and the forthcoming Liberal International Congress in Canada. However, his failure to explain himself under oath was widely criticised in the press, and the public perception was that he had been fortunate to have "got off". Reluctantly, Thorpe accepted that there was no future role for him within the Liberal Party, and informed the North Devon association that he would not seek to fight the seat again. Steel expressed the hope that Thorpe would, "after a suitable period of rest and recuperation ... find many avenues where his great talents may be used."