I confess: my heart broke when Nick Clegg lost his seat. He was one of the UK's best parliamentarians

Many party activists – those who preferred pointless protest to actually making it into office – would never forgive Clegg for even entertaining a joint endeavour with the Tories

Nick Clegg lost his parliamentary seat in the general election (Darren O’Brien/Guzelian)

The alarm pinged at shortly after 5am. I scrabbled for the iPad – could the previous night’s exit poll be right? Sure enough it could, and then some. So much so that the hubris of Theresa May’s decision to call a snap election felt almost tangible. Thrilling stuff.

I scrolled down a list of key points: no majority for the Tories; a Labour surge; the SNP on the run. And then – the bombshell.

Nick Clegg, the man who led the Liberal Democrats into government, felled in Sheffield Hallam. I confess it now, my heart broke.

I’m old enough – just – to remember the bad times in the late ‘80s when the Lib Dems had completely lost it (almost as completely as now). My earliest political memory is of my dad canvassing for the SDP-Liberal Alliance in 1987. And then, under Paddy Ashdown, there was the impression of a revival but the reality of an ever-falling share in the popular vote.

Clegg was elected to Parliament in 2005 – he commanded more than 50 per cent of the vote back then and the Lib Dems took 62 seats. Two years later he was party leader; three years on, after those memorable TV debates which got the nation swooning, he was Deputy Prime Minister in a rose-garlanded Coalition government.

Agreeing a deal with the Conservatives was perhaps a difficult decision but it showed that the Lib Dems could play an effective role in government, promoting progressive, liberal values at a hugely challenging time for the UK. With the Labour party imploding and the country’s economy in a mess, it was the right choice.

It was also, of course, the beginning of a long end after the stellar rise. Many party activists – those who preferred pointless protest to actually making it into office – would never forgive Clegg for even entertaining a joint endeavour with the Tories. Many who could live with the principle of coalition could neither forgive nor forget the subsequent U-turn on university tuition fees.

Shamefully, it is that volte-face which has haunted Clegg for the last seven years and which perhaps lies behind his loss at the polls on Thursday. And it is hard to dispute the notion that, for the Liberal Democrats, it was a misstep from which it will take many more years to recover. The irony, of course, is that it is an eminently sensible, indeed progressive, policy. Had it been presented as a graduate tax – payable only by the highly-salaried and with a more effective system of bursaries for less well-off students – perhaps things would have been different. Perhaps not.

After the party’s horrible night in 2015, it was inevitable that Clegg would step down as leader. But in his passionate defence of Britain’s role in Europe and the EU he showed he was a more capable parliamentarian than most of his colleagues. He could – should – have been a key figure in holding the Government to account over Brexit.

In his speech on Thursday morning, after defeat in Sheffield became plain, Clegg made what ought not to be his last political speech.

“Parliament”, he said, “is presiding over a deeply, deeply divided and polarised country … Polarised between left and right; between different regions and nations … but most gravely of all, this huge gulf between young and old … My plea to all MPs … is this: we will not pick our way through the very difficult times our country faces if in the next parliament MPs of all parties seek simply to amplify what divides them.”

Bang on to the bitter end. I agree with Nick.