Say goodbye to the Lib Dems

It’s lasted a lot longer than I had thought, this coalition. I gave it a year, assuming that either the AV referendum would do for it entirely or the Lib Dems would tire of playing grown-ups and revert to type.

There is certainly plenty of evidence of the latter. Almost every time Lynne Featherstone opens her mouth you get the waft of a student sit-in at a not very good university. The ‘University’ of Bedfordshire, say.

It seemed to me both cruel and ironic that the Lib Dems were elevated to their first position of power in eighty years (save for the war) on the back of the party’s most disappointing election results in forty years and with its most inept leader perhaps in history.

I suppose the coalition remains sort of intact solely because needs must. Much as I respect a few Lib Dems — Baroness Scott is a good thing, so too Sarah Teather, Simon Hughes and the excellent Paddy — they will surely cease to exist after the next general election. Won’t they? Or will I be wrong again?