When I predicted last week that a “good proportion” of the Liberal Democrat support so marvelled at by the media would evaporate on election day, I had no idea what a staggering understatement that would turn out to be. It cannot be repeated too often: the Lib Dems have actually lost seats. Their really significant contribution to the democratic process seems to have been to galvanise the loyal followers of the two main parties (especially the Labour ones) into turning up at polling stations in stupendous numbers. Determined to stamp out what they saw as the threat of the Cleggite hordes, the riotous armies of Left and Right converged on the battlefield with such ferocity that they fought each other to a standstill, putting the little upstart Lib Dems firmly back in their accustomed third place.
Except that they aren’t back in their deserved place, on the margins of British political life. Even in ignominious defeat, they have gained an inordinate degree of power. The “king-making” capacity which was supposed to have come with their expected electoral gains has fallen to them anyway, because the tribal devotion inspired by the two major parties has produced something like exhausted stalemate.
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