The Lib Dems are finished – time to focus on the Tories

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

The Liberal Democrats are dead. Finished. Their death warrant was signed at 17.41 yesterday evening. As long as they continue down the path they are on they will consign themselves to history as a national party. They were at 8% in the polls before so many of their number (and all of their “leading lights”) broke their pre-election pledges. The only way is down for the Liberal Democrats.

It is easy to crow at their demise. At LabourList we’ve often predicted their demise. Many of you have used these pages to pour scorn on a party which has often attacked Labour from the left, and now helps to govern the country from the right.

But there is another party in government, and that us the beast we have to slay if we wish to return to government. Even if Labour were to win all Lib Dem seats at the next election (which we won’t), we still need to win Tory seats to regain power.

Much has been made of broken promises from Clegg and Cable, but this has let the Tories off the hook. Cameron has been guilty of breaking a crucial promise, saying that he wouldn’t make frontline cuts before doing just that. Andrew Lansley said there would be no more pointless reorganisations of the NHS – before he handed 80% of NHS funding to GPs.

What we need to do now is turn these broken promises against the Tories in the same way that Clegg’s broken promises have been turned against the Lib Dems.

Of course it’s much easier to attack the Lib Dems – and certainly more fun – but as Ed Balls points out in Tribune today, this simply lets the Tories off the hook.

So let’s ignore the Lib Dems. They have self-destructed and are no longer our concern. We have four and a half years to beat the Tories – that’s the fight we must win.