LIBERAL Democrat campaign leader Paddy Ashdown kicked off the party’s campaign in one of Hampshire’s key constituencies by warning of the “extreme” policies of other parties.

The party’s former leader gave a speech at Eastleigh’s bandstand and heavily criticised “disgusting” comments made by UKIP leader Nigel Farage during the televised leaders’ debates last week.

Despite the constituency being held by the Lib Dems since 1994, Mr Ashdown joked that he was leader of the party when its support was “represented by an asterisk” and asked volunteers and voters to keep up their efforts until May 7.

Candidate Mike Thornton took the seat by a margin of 1,771 in a 2013 by-election triggered by the resignation in disgrace of Chris Huhne after he admitted lying over asking his then-wife Vicky Pryce to take his speeding points.

Mr Ashdown said: “We are fighting this for the man [Mr Thornton] but we are also fighting it for something else.

“Politics is splitting away to the extremes and even after that disgusting speech by Nigel Farage the Tories would still not say they would not go into partnership with them.

“This is the danger that we now see developing. We stand for respect and decency and we are the one party which says to Farage that we have nothing in common.

“We are the polar opposite of everything that he stands for.”

Nationally the Lib Dems have faced fierce criticism for the U-turn over tuition fees for university students and for going into a coalition with the Conservatives, but Mr Thornton instead argued that this highlighted their principles.

He said: “We were putting the country before our party – we have done things that needed to be done and we did it although we knew our popularity would go down.”

Although the party has held the seat for more than 20 years, the UK Independence Party’s share of the vote rocketed from 1,933 in 2010 to 11,571 at the 2013 by-election.

Current candidate Patricia Culligan believes that had the party given proper thought to postal voting, it would have triumphed in 2013.

She said: “Had we understood how the postal vote worked we would have got first place, I think.

“There’s a lot of complacency in Eastleigh and it’s not good for one party to be so enshrined to have a sense of arrogance and entitlement.

“You never know what’s coming but if I am elected I will keep our shop – I think that availability is key.”

In 2013 fewer than 3,000 votes separated the Lib Dems, UKIP and the Conservatives and Labour’s Mark Latham is going one step further to declare the seat a four-way marginal.

He said: “We are pretty pleased at the moment. This is one election which is inspiring people who may have voted tactically, and have been persuaded by the Lib Dems argument, to vote with their values.”

Green candidate Ron Meldrum said he was enjoying the excitement of campaigning.

He said: “I’m just overjoyed because it’s something I have been dreaming of since I was 20, and I think people have started to see the light.”

Conservative candidate Mims Davies was not available for comment.