A bleak future for Clegg's Liberal Democrats?

Nick Clegg has already ensured his place in history. Taking the 3rd party,now the Liberal Democrats into government for the first time in 70 years. If he deserves credit for little else, that is an achievement for which he will be long remembered.

With the evaporation of 'Cleggmania' on polling day, with Labour finishing decisively ahead of the Liberal Democrats in second place, It is easy to forget that many had predicted a virtual wipe out for the party in the South West and a real squeeze from the two main parties in all other parts of the country just weeks before.

It didn't happen. The Lib Dems in reality lost just a handful of seats and increased their vote share by 1%.

For those who were surprised by Nick Clegg's focus on making a success of negotiations with the Tories, they should not have been.

An economic and social liberal by instinct. He had previously worked for Tory EU commissioner Leon Brittan and his wife Miriam has worked for Chris Patten as well as coming from a Conservative political dynasty in Spain. There is much conjecture that like David Laws, only the Tory party's social conservatism prevented that being his natural home.

He is an instinctive state sceptic.

So the failure of talks between Labour and the Liberal Democrats was in reality less about numbers and more about philosophy.

However, in his enthusiasm to embrace the undoubtedly bold offer from David Cameron to enter into a full coalition, he has in reality secured a very poor deal for his Party. Very much leading from the front Clegg will ultimately be held responsible for the fate of his party in the years ahead.

No great offices of state,unheard of for the smaller party in coalitions across Europe, often in much weaker positions than the one Clegg found himself in and on issue after issue virtually every one of the Lib Dem's key manifesto commitments watered down,dropped or reversed. From VAT to Trident, Corporation tax to AV, the compromises have been very much one way.

There is no clear Lib Dem narrative emerging. Polls now consistently show the Tories reaching territory where an outright majority could just be theirs whilst 2 months after its worst defeat in a generation and leaderless Labour has bounced back to a promising 35%. The Liberals? Plunging down into the mid teens % and no excuse of lack of media exposure will hold now.

Given the Tories and Lib Dems are in government together, what explains such iniquitous polling fortunes? Anecdotally it seems that the government's programme is very much what Tory and potential Tory voters expect from their party, whereas many Lib Dem voters feel the complete policy reversal in terms of when the cuts should happen has severely damaged the parties credibility and electoral appeal.

It was a remarkable coalescence of circumstances that allowed the FPTP system designed to virtually ensure majority government to produce a hung parliament. Without a successful 'Yes' vote in referendum next year, it is unlikely to be repeated at the next election.

AV a system which is in no way proportional,though it does not end the possibility of 1 party majority governments, but it makes them somewhat less likely than under the present system.

Many predict that it will favour one of the major parties over the other. It may in individual general elections, though I see no reason to think it would establish unbreakable dominion for either side in alliance with the 3rd party.

One thing is certain. AV will not break the political mould in the way AV+ or STV would. It will not bring in an age of multi party power sharing but may give the Lib Dems a small electoral boost at some point. It is in short a very poor deal for them.

John Denham wrote last week that should Labour become the largest party at the next election but short of an overall majority the price of working with the Liberal Democrats would be the resignation of Nick Clegg as Lib Dem leader. This is not political posturing, it is an accurate observation of the price the Lib Dems would need to pay for their part in a rightwing government that would have been rejected by the electorate.

Many Lib Dems take great pleasure in asserting that working with Labour was never a real possibility. Well it cuts bot ways and whatever else is uncertain in politics, one can be sure that as political fortunes rise so they fall.

Much is made of the hostility from the Labour benches towards the Lib Dems for the support they are giving to what daily becomes clear, a Conservative government. Yet their own lofty dismissal of the Labour party as an irrelevance, is wide of the mark and a comment they may have cause to repent on at leisure, perhaps sooner than they think.With support for AV disappearing almost as quickly as likely Lib Dem voters, there is a real chance that their cavalier, grab for power, will put voters off the idea of electoral reform for another generation.

Much was made in the House today of Nick Clegg being the first Liberal politician to respond to questions to the Prime Minister since David Lloyd George. He appears determined to ensure that any Liberal successor will have to wait equally as long.