Helped by a beard - why the Tories have not been demolished in the current UK elections

Blimey, the facial hair that is the Liberal Democrat party must be feeling pretty hard done by: they're effectively taking all the cuts aimed at the gormless fizzog that is the smug Tory party. There are scarcely any hairs left unscathed amongst the LibDems. Punished only partly covers what has happened.

Increasingly, the Tories must feel it's almost a good thing they didn't win an outright majority, for the all the grumblings some felt at allowing the LDs to sit at the high table of pointlessness (aka the Cabinet). Tories have been able to get pretty much ALL their 'slash, burn and privatise' agenda through, AND have found a convenient 'beard' to draw the ire of voters disgruntled at that agenda. It's all in the name of 'balancing the deficit' but by their own admission the Tories have said they would always have wanted a smaller state regardless of the economic situation....

In effectively abandoning several of the most high profile Liberal Democrat policies - and assenting to some that didn't seem to be on anyone's manifesto - the LDs have successfully pissed off their core voters, alienated the waverers who had been attracted by the promises (how empty do they seem now?), and proven their irrelevance to the Tory majority.

Only if the LDs actually find some metal and start voting down Tory legislation will anyone think they are in the coalition as anything more than a beard.