If nothing else, this year’s Liberal Democrat conference has shown that many party members are content to lurch towards electoral disaster. Broadly speaking, the members seem happier with the Farron-Huhne-Harris view of the coalition as, at best, a necessary if uncomfortable evil than they do with the Clegg-Alexander-Laws belief that it’s a happy, virtuous thing.
The desire to “distance” themselves from the Conservatives is as understandable as it is likely to be disastrous. It is an approach that cannot and will not work. Running away from your record is a ridiculous approach to take and one that invites scorn and mockery. Just ask Tavish Scott and his Scottish colleagues how well it works.
It cannot work because it requires the Liberal Democrats to fight the next election in a defensive mode, forever apologising for supporting a Conservative-led government and asking voters to remember that without their presence matters might have been “even worse”.
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