The party and its predecessors spent about 60 years refusing to answer the question about whether they preferred Labour or the Tories. Now, at least for this Parliament, Clegg has answered the question. This deliberate strategic decision sacrifices some of the  tactical flexibility, which allowed the Lib Dems to appeal to a wide range of potential voters.

There is some risk that the parties support will be shredded, in the way it was in the years between the World Wars when some cried left, some right and others forward. This has not happened, so far, at the Parliamentary level.

Clegg needs to preserve sufficient independence that the Lib Dems do not become a minor ally of the Conservatives, wholly dependent upon keeping on good terms with them for political survival, like the Liberal Nationals were.

If they could have extracted a genuine commitment to  proportional representation, it might have been defensible. But the vague promise of a referendum on a demonstrably crap version of pr, which the tories have promised to bitterly oppose, simply isn't good enough.

If they wiun the referendum and get changes to the election law they will have delivered systemic change that should increase their seats even if they loose votes.

If they loose, then right after the referendum would probably be the best time for the lib-dems to pull the plug on this government (and thus, I presume, trigger elections). If they need a reason they can always cite how mean the tories were in the campaign and find some promise tories reneged on.

Even with one of the crappier versions of pr, I would guess reform would get more votes then the libdem got in the last general election (if not, someone has not done their polling). When Tories and Labor congratulate each other on defeating the evils of equal representation is precisely the right moment for the libdems to try to rally those that just got voted down to "vote again for pr, and this time we will win!"

Played right, a general election coming on the heels of a referendum on the election systems, were tories and labor collaborated in the campaign, should give the libdems a fantastic opportunity.

This all assuming their will be a referendum.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se