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 resort. The phrase is attributed to advertising agent and Liberal parliamentary candidate Adrian Slade. The slogan was memorable, but considered uninspiring. Future Liberal Party leader David Steel called the whole campaign "a slightly less successful re-run of February." In the October 1974 general election, the Liberals received over 700,000 fewer votes and returned 13 MPs, down one, with Wilson achieving an overall majority of three. Thorpe and the Liberals were deflated by the outcome of the October 1974 election. Wilson's majority, albeit slim, denied Thorpe the role of kingmaker, leaving the Liberals without a clear role; as Dutton observes, apart