Libdem dilemma

Can Britain's Liberal Democrats go on like this? In Thursday's by-elections in Rotherham, Middlesbrough and Croydon they lost their deposit in two and in Rotherham finished eighth of nine candidates behind the British National Party, George Galloway's Respect party and something called the English Democrats. A psychologist who specialises in by-elections said yesterday that the Liberal Democrats' results were “the worst on record by any political party” in recent times. Labour won all three of these fairly safe seats but the Conservatives also did badly, coming fifth in Rotherham. While his party falls apart in the country Nick Clegg grandstands at Westminster even to the extent of disagreeing in the House of Commons with David Cameron over the Leveson report. There must be a possibility that the LibDems will virtually disappear at the General Election. Mr Clegg argues that he joined the coalition in 2010 to support the priority policy of stopping and reversing Britain's dire economic situation and would see it through to the 2015 election. But it's now clear that objective will not have been reached by 2015. The Liberal Democrats would therefore be wise to give notice that they will leave the coalition in, say, twelve months from now so that they can rebuild their independence in time for the general election. If they do not do so their fate will be worse than the Conservative's.