General Election 2015: Danny Alexander loses Inverness seat to SNP rival Drew Hendry

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the last Government is said to be considering his options

Danny Alexander, one of the Coalition’s key architects and No 2 at the Treasury (Getty Images)

In a humiliating blow to the Liberal Democrats Danny Alexander, one of the key architects of the Coalition and Chief Secretary to the Treasury, has been defeated by an insurgent SNP that is set to wipe the Lib Dems off the electoral map of the Highlands.

Following a run of dire polling there had been talk of a Lib Dem fight back in the Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey constituency, however Mr Alexander’s aides have now admitted defeated several hours before the formal declaration is due.

Sources at the count claimed his vote had “held up well”, but that the 42-year-old has admitted defeated and was “obviously disappointed” after suggestions that the SNP vote could be as high as 50 per cent.

He was defeated by Drew Hendry, the leader of the local council who waged a fierce campaign portraying Mr Alexander as a key architect austerity.

Mr Hendry told the Independent: “What’s clear is the people of this seat and the people of Scotland have voted for change and that the SNP MPs elected tonight to help bring about that change.”

As party leader Nick Clegg’s chief of staff and 2010 coalition negotiator, Mr Alexander was the driving force of the alliance that set off the decline in Lib Dem support in Scotland that saw its poll rating drop to 4 per cent in national polls. He now looks set to become the most high-profile casualty of that Coalition’s electoral decline.

Mr Alexander enjoyed a meteoric rise to power from press officer for the Cairgorms National Park to fourth most powerful politician in the land in just five years. And with 40 per cent of the vote in 2010, and a majority of 19 per cent it looked unlikely that Mr Alexander would lose the seat.

However a string of polls and the unpopularity of the Coalition in the far north of Scotland sealed his fate. In February a Lord Ashcroft poll gave his the SNP a lead of 50 per cent, against 21 per cent for the Lib Dems amid suggestions that Mr Alexander was being blamed for his role as a willing accomplice to the harsh benefits cuts brought in by the Tory-led Coalition.

The Inverness vote was counted alongside two other Highland constituencies at the Ross County football stadium, where by 2am senior Lib Dems were admitting they face humiliating defeated across the Highlands, with John Thurso and former party leader Charles Kennedy both set to lose their seats to the SNP.

Outwardly Mr Alexander had been remarkably confident before the polls closed, seemingly genuinely proud of his record in office, but that changed in the early hours of this morning. This came despite an emotional appeal earlier in the week from Mr Clegg for voters to save his “closest friend”.

However the appeal and extra funding thrown at the Highlands seems to have been insufficient to save Mr Alexander, who joked during a distillery tour with Mr Clegg that he would “hammer the Nats” as he hammered the bung into a cask of whisky.

Instead it is the Lib Dem No 2 that has taken a hammering, with questions quickly turning to his future following reports he may now be offered a seat in the House of Lords. It will be a humiliating blow for a politician who became the fourth most powerful politician in the country in less than a decade, but Drew Hendry and the SNP have brought his career a halt in the distant shadow of the mountain where his career began.

Ironically Mr Hendry is politician that understand the complexities and comprises of coalition government all too well; he runs the sprawling Highland Council with the support of a coalition of SNP, Lib Dems and Labour.