For the past 18 months we have seen event after event where the UK Coalition Government has trotted off down the path set out by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have followed meekly, setting aside their former policy positions for the (according to them) best interests of Britain.

This begs the question of why the Liberal Democrats bothered framing policies that they a few weeks later concluded with seemingly minimal persuasion were not in the best interests of Britain?

Leaving that rhetorical question to one side, some, I suspect still hoped that when it came to the crunch – on the big issues, the ones that really mattered, that the Liberal Democrats would be a crucial counter weight to a Conservative Party which, despite the reasonable face of its leader, contained within it some significantly unstable, untterly unreconstructed elements.

Some were surprised when the Liberal Democrats backed a fiscal strategy well to the right of anything discussed during the election. Had they examined, however, the on the record economic thinking espoused by Mr Clegg and his allies they could hardly have been shocked. 

Others were either stunned or appalled at the bare-faced about turn on student tuition fees. Though that was OK because, as Mr Cable explained, they had only said it thinking they would not, actually, have to do anything about it.

Even some prominent Liberal Democrats were taken aback by their immediate support for the Health and Social Care Bill, thinking perhaps that fundamental change to a major area of public policy should have at least the pretence of a popular mandate. But having had the issue put on hold for a few months the LibDems backed the Bill.

But despite all of this the Liberal Democrats were still there. They would surely provide a counter weight when it came to the issue that had effectively brought down the Major Government. There is no way that the Liberal Democrats would turn their backs on what had been a founding principle of their party and central to their policy positions ever since. At least they would hold the line on Europe. No, seemingly not.

It is hard for me to disagree with much of Will Hutton’s excellent Guardian piece on the consequences of Mr Cameron’s non-veto veto. Perhaps that it is a little early to know whether it is a mistake of quite the proportions Mr Hutton believes, though I fear it may be. But one would have imagined, with their policy history, that the Liberal Democrats may have shared Mr Huttons view of the scale of the disaster, if not all of his analysis.

Again, no. So far the Liberal Democrat objection to the Prime Minister’s costly media stunt amounts to a few words on Sunday morning TV after bing poked with a stick by his colleagues and not taking his seat on the front bench for Monday’s statement to The House. No Cabinet resignations and only an abstention in a vote on a motion recognising the supposed “desire of the British people for a rebalancing of the relationship with our European neighbours”. Half-hearted stuff if ever there was.

Mr Clegg has at least come clean about what motivates his actions here. Far from talking about the good of the country Mr Clegg, far from his policy being wildly impractical, he tell his party that an election, triggered by a split in the coalition over the EU, would be fatal for his Party. So not only is Mr Clegg putting his party interest before his view of the national interest he is openly admitting to doing so. Perhaps someone can see a difference between this stance and that of Mr Cameron, but it looks suspiciously like angels on the head of a pin to this cynical old git.

But it is OK because as one LibDem somewhere in Feltham and Heston told the BBC, the result of that by-election demonstrated their ‘relevance’. That’s what finishing 88 votes ahead of UKIP means!

The truth is it is shameful stuff. There is nothing Mr Clegg would not do to maintain the Coalition. Politicians with courage stand by what they believe in or make a coherent argument when events take over. Leaders take on the nutcases in their parties. Not to face down fanatics only gives them encouragement. In failing to do so Mr Cameron has weakened his leadership in the longer run. Who knows what waits in the wings.