Tensions within the Liberal Democratic party are beginning to emerge - first with news that Nick Clegg's senior health advisor's insistence on changes to Conservative minister Andrew Landsley's controversial health bill were met with flat refusal, and now grass-roots members are informing me that the party has obsessed itself with winning the AV referendum because the party's actions in government are "too awful to bear". Now a senior Liberal Democrat councillor has asked Clegg to abandon the coalition as soon as possible to save the party from collapse at future elections.
The damp squib of a compromise regarding AV (a barely rehashed version of the current First Past The Post system that eliminates some wasted votes but is still disproportional on a nationwide basis) was one of the few redeeming qualities of the coalition agreement from the perspective of the Liberals. The Tories pointed out that since they had 5 times more seats, they deserved the bulk of "power", but this ignores the fact that in terms of actual votes, the ratio was more like 3:2 than 5:1. Now canvassing data suggests that the Liberals will loose the AV referendum, and the party is failing to get to grips with the idea that it wasn't much of a compromise after all. The Liberals risk being electorally disintegrated in May when voters select representatives in the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament. Polls suggest that the Greens, historically much smaller, will comfortably beat the Liberals in both elections.
Reliable sources have informed me that the Liberals are on the brink of internal meltdown if the coalition is not abandoned very soon. The next few weeks should be politically exciting, with the prospect of another election in the summer or autumn certainly on the cards. If the national electorate witnesses the Liberals slump behind the Greens in May's regional elections, they may abandon the Liberals rank and file and recourse to a new protest vote option in the next general election.
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