THE leadership of British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has been questioned by some of his own MPs as Liberal Democrat candidates joined voices urging him to quit over dismal election results.
The Deputy Prime Minister has insisted he is staying despite the party losing more than 250 councillors in local elections and anticipating another rout when European election results emerge later.
Southport MP John Pugh suggested that a dozen of his Commons colleagues had expressed doubts to him over whether Clegg should continue at the head of the party.
An internal "post-mortem" of the poor night at the polls - in which the party was almost or entirely wiped out in some former strongholds - "has to include a truly open, mature and balanced look at our whole strategy, including the leadership issue", the Southport MP told the Sunday Times.
"Although I admire enormously Nick's bravery, it does not follow that because the captain should go down with the ship that the ship has to go down with the captain."
Fellow Lib Dem MP Adrian Sanders, who represents Torbay, said: "The problem is the messenger, very few people say it's the message."
Clegg has conceded that the strongly pro-EU party could lose all 11 of its MEPS when results are declared later on Sunday and even the most optimistic polls suggest only a handful will survive.
As the scale of the losses became clear, Clegg said he would "absolutely not" resign, and insisted the Lib Dems were still succeeding where they focused on their achievements in coalition.
He blamed a wider "anti-politics mood" but his party has suffered in opinion polls, with ratings at consistently low levels since joining the Conservative-led coalition.
Two would-be MPs are among more than 600 people who have signed up to the online LibDems4Change campaign which has published an open letter calling on Clegg to step down.
Jackie Porter, who is set to fight the Conservative-held target seat of Winchester in next May's general election, said the party was "not going forward with a clear strategy".
The county councillor said the party's achievements were overshadowed because Clegg "allowed himself to be portrayed as just another pea out of the same pod" as Prime Minister David Cameron and opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband.
To win back support, the party needed to demonstrate it was different, she said.
If Clegg refuses to quit, a leadership contest would be triggered if 75 local party associations formally demanded one, or if a majority of the parliamentary party approved a no-confidence motion.
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