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Lib Dem leadership candidate Ed Davey has been forced to apologise for his use of "violent language" after he called for Boris Johnson to be "decapitated".

In a piece for the Times Red Box, Mr Davey called for an electoral pact in Boris Johnson's constituency between pro-Remain parties to unseat the PM contender.

He said: "I hereby float the idea of a Remain alliance to decapitate that blond head in Uxbridge and South Ruislip if Johnson calls a snap election to deliver Brexit."

A decapitation strategy involves picking out key seats the party thinks they can win and pouring resources there.

Mr Johnson's majority has a majority of just over 5,000 - down from 10,695 in 2015.

But the runners up in the seat are Labour on 18,682.

(Image: PA)

In his piece he also called for the party to win back Brecon and Radnorshire after a by-election was triggered after the sitting Tory was convicted of criminal offences over his expenses and almost 20% of all registered voters locally signed a recall petitio n.

He said: "Two Lib Dem victories would deprive Johnson of a majority.

"The Queen might decide we need an emergency national government which could deliver a people’s vote on Brexit, and I hope she does."

Mr Davey's rival for the leadership Jo Swinson MP slammed his choice of words.

She said: “The language we use is important. We have to be able to have robust debate in our politics without resorting to graphic, violent imagery. We have to rediscover the ability to disagree well with each other.

“This is not language I would use, and in the current climate I don’t think we should speak in those terms.

“Boris will be a disaster for this country, but we can make that case without resorting to violent language."

Mr Davey later replied on Twitter saying: "I recognise this wasn't an acceptable choice of phrase and I'm sorry.

"This was a careless use of language, meant in electoral sense and in no way literally.

"Whilst we should be robust in our opposition, we do have to carefully consider impact of our words and I failed to do that."