The End of the Liberal Democrats is Getting Closer

We now have a clearer view of the position of the Liberal Democrats on tuition fees:

Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and other leaders will vote in favour (thus ensuring in all likelihood that Higher Fees are introduced)
Simon Hughes and others can't apparently make up their minds and therefore will abstain (again helping the Tories to get fees through Parliament)
and then apparently a number of backbench Lib Dem MPs including Roger Williams and Mark Williams from Wales will vote against

And this from a Party that pledged not to increase fees! Less a Party more a rabble in the current circumstances.

More than anything however going into government has exposed the very significant weakness of the Lib Dem political position. You can for a while get away it seems with being all things to all people, and very different things to very different people. This can 'work' as long as you are in opposition - but in Government such an approach gets exposed for precisely what it is - political opportunism with very few core beliefs. This is I'm sure what we're seeing now, and will see again over the next few years as Lib Dem MPs whose politics range from a harder left position that most Labour MPs in some cases, to considerably more right wing that the majority of one-nation conservatives.

The problem for the Lib Dems is that they are not one party - rather a disparate collection of protest groups that didn't find a comfortable home in the UK context in either the Tories or Labour.

The next few years will be very interesting in terms of the rise and fall of the Lib Dems.

Managed badly we could return to Liberal representation akin to the 1950s where no one is happy with the direction of the Party. Alternatively, Clegg and his team could set out a right wing socially and economically liberal political position. This would undoubtedly be challenging, many members would leave, particularly in Wales and Scotland, but at least the Liberals would have a definitive political position to face the next election. Anything surely would be an improvement on the current 'position'.