Who did Nick Clegg narrowly defeat in the LibDem leadership contest in 2007?
Nick Clegg stated the election would be a two-horse race between Clegg and Chris Huhne who had stood against Campbell in the 2006 election. On Friday 19 October 2007, Clegg launched his bid to become leader of the Liberal Democrats. Clegg and Huhne clashed in the campaign over Trident but were largely in agreement on many other issues. It was announced on 18 December that he had won. Clegg was appointed to the Privy Council (PC) on 30 January 2008, and affirmed his membership on 12 March 2008. In his acceptance speech upon winning the leadership contest, Clegg declared himself to be
Nick Clegg a period of increased media speculation about Sir Menzies Campbell's leadership, which the admission by Clegg did nothing to reduce and resulted in a rebuke by some of his frontbench colleagues. This followed a report from Kevin Maguire in the "New Statesman" that Clegg had failed to hide his disloyalty to Campbell's leadership. Campbell eventually resigned on 15 October 2007, saying that questions about his leadership were "getting in the way of further progress by the party". After Campbell's resignation, Clegg was regarded by much of the media as front-runner in the leadership election. The BBC's Political Editor Nick Robinson