Well, do you miss the Liberal Democrats yet? Amid the Grand Guignol scenes of Labour’s post-mortem, it is easy to forget that the biggest loser was a party that prides itself on its resilience – one that its probable next leader, Tim Farron, described as “like cockroaches after a nuclear war, just a bit less smelly”.
Unfortunately, most of those cockroaches are now crunchy innards stuck to the bottom of David Cameron’s shoe. The party’s grim acceptance of the downsides of coalition was a marvel for five long years – their back benches were far less querulous than those of the Tories throughout the parliament – but in hindsight it looks positively suicidal. A grumpier party might have made Nick Clegg think twice about his tuition fees U-turn (as it was, 21 Lib Dems voted against the bill, including Farron, Charles Kennedy and Ming Campbell, but not the leadership contender Norman Lamb, who was a minister and so part of the “payroll vote”).
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