Stop the Cuts - National Demonstration

I'm with Tynan in that I don't think you can compare being a very minor coalition partner, having polled one of the lowest votes in their history as "being in power". All promises are null and void because they were never deliverable anyway; it's the Lib-Dems.

Then you're with everyone else, because no one thinks that. That is, in my experience, no one is upset that the Libdems did not act out their election manifesto.

On the other hand, individual MP votes, which one makes a campaign promise on, are something else entirely. And if your MP tells you they will vote on an issue one way (tuition fees, war in Iraq, vat cuts, whatever), and then does the opposite, you have every right to be upset at them. In this sense, it has nothing to do with being a coalition partner.

However, by being a coalition partner, it would have been interesting to see how this would have played out: They could have told Cameron that this was an issue they could not go along with. They had made promises to their voters. It is something they believed in. Cameron would have caved, imo. And if he didn't, and the government fell, the libdems would looked better for it (they kept their promise to voters, the Conservatives were an unwilling coalition partner, etc.).

I suspect Will is right. Clegg is only worried about AV now, and will do anything he can to stay in power until the referendum happens.