By Richard Chidwick

The Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg is more popular than his deputy leader Vince Cable for the first time following Politicshome.com’s weekly opinion poll.

Mr Clegg’s popularity has shot up in tandem with Lib Dem’s record lead in the popularity polls.

The party leader’s solid performance in the leadership debates precipitated his sudden climb, the most rapid witnessed by the tracker since it started in April 2008.

Mr Clegg’s approval rating in Politics Home’s weekly tracker has risen by a staggering 35 points following the Lib Dem leader’s TV debate debut, jumping from 3 percent to 38%.

He has also overtaken William Hague and Ken Clarke in his level of approval and is forty six points higher than David Cameron, now at minus 8 and 59 points higher than Gordon Brown at minus 21.