[sideshowb]

It was a coalition, though, and whatever he betrayed for that, you could argue he might have prevented the Tories from running an even worse government than they did during those years. Given what's happened afterwards, the evidence would be on your side.

For all that, I think he made a serious mistake going into coalition with the Tories when he could equally well (going on election results) have done so with Labour (plus possibly SNP I forget), whose policies I thought should have better aligned with Lib Dem.

But I'm assuming the best of intent here, and will continue to do so until proven otherwise, so this case is an interesting development.

[thorin]

From what I remember due to the figures if he'd gone with Labour it would have been a massively rainbow coalition. I think he got conned by the superior sliming skills of some of the tories and saw a bit of power, then messed up. He went all out to try for proportional representation giving up all other policies and then the tories were able to market that as looking so bad or just uninteresting that the majority either didn't understand the vote or didn't care, so it lost.

[kennyadam]

There's an interesting article from the time here: https://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/domestic_pol...

[talldan]

Clegg voted for raising tuition fees, in direct contradiction to the pledges. It was a betrayal and one that's on public record.

Cameron was a disaster. Austerity was incredibly cruel on the poorest of the population, and the UK wasn't exactly a shining light in its recovery from the financial crisis. He led a weak remain campaign and then stepped aside as soon as Brexit became difficult, and the following governments have had to deal with his mess, the covid outbreak and the effects of the war in Ukraine.

So I think you could equally say that the coalition is a root cause of many of the issues of today. That and the lack of any credible opposition for years.

[lambertsimnel]

> Cameron was a disaster. Austerity was incredibly cruel on the poorest of the population, and the UK wasn't exactly a shining light in its recovery from the financial crisis.

Although austerity did indeed start under the coalition (so it has the Lib Dems' fingerprints on it), didn't much of what many dislike about Cameron's premiership stem from after the end of the coalition?

> He led a weak remain campaign and then stepped aside as soon as Brexit became difficult, and the following governments have had to deal with his mess

He was rumoured to have campaigned in the 2015 general election on the assumption he'd renew the coalition with the Lib Dems, who would block the EU referendum he'd promised his voters, and who he could continue using as a human shield. But the backlash against the Lib Dems after just one term of coalition with him was so severe that he had to lead a single-party majority government and uphold his negotiating position as if it were a plan for government.

[specialist]

I don't have a dog in this fight. For other lurkers like me, here's some background:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Clegg#Tuition_fees

[rjsw]

There were not the numbers of MPs to be able to form a coalition with Labour, a better solution could have been to just support the Tories with a confidence and supply [1] agreement.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_and_supply

[lambertsimnel]

I get the impression Clegg was concerned about any Prime Minister (whether put in place by a coalition, by a confidence and supply deal, or as head of a minority government) calling an early election just as soon as polls indicated it would be to their advantage. Partisan elections being a zero-sum game, that would be to the disadvantage of other parties, likely disproportionately including the junior party of any deal. This was before the Fixed-Term Parliament Act, and some of Clegg's energy, attention and political capital went into that act, rather than into electoral reform, tuition fees, etc.

[cjrp]

How well has that worked out for the DUP though?