SHEFFIELD HALLAM: Downbeat leader in convincing home win

Mr Clegg was uncharacteristically tight-lipped after arriving at the count at the Ponds Forge sports centre, possibly a reflection of a failure to achieve a much-touted national breakthrough.

Certainly he had no concerns about the result in Hallam which saw Mr Clegg returned with a 15,284 majority – the biggest, numerically, of any of Sheffield's six seats.

Nicola Bates trailed in second place for the Tories with 12,040 votes to the winner's 27,324 – a result which represented a 6.9 per cent swing to the Lib Dems.

Labour's Jack Scott came third with a creditable 16.1 per cent of the votes, a drop of only 1.7 per cent on 2005 on a night when his party was generally experiencing much bigger cuts in votes nationwide.

After declining requests for interviews following his arrival at the count, Mr Clegg gave a downbeat acceptance speech in which he readily acknowledged disappointment at the outcome nationally. "We simply haven't achieved what we hoped. I'm nonetheless proud of the way we conducted the campaign.

"I think we conducted a positive campaign, full of hope, full of optimism which I think did engage a lot of people in the election campaign – even if they didn't then go on to vote Liberal Democrat."

The turnout of 73.7 per cent was by far the biggest of any of the Sheffield constituencies and itself represented a rise of 5.8 per cent on 2005.

But the surge in voter interest brought chaos at some polling stations with Ranmoor experiencing particular problems when voters had to be turned away after the 10pm cut-off.

Mr Clegg expressed anger that voters in his constituency had been denied their right to vote.