It is hard to see how David Cameron can be right in saying that Liberal Democrats do not moderate government policy, otherwise what is the purpose of coalition government? Nick Clegg said that the Liberal Democrats are "clearly influencing" government policy. He asked "do you think the reforms we are going to introduce in banking would have happened without Lib Dems in government?"and went on to ask a few more rhetorical questions. I think they were rhetorical and not answered because of his responsibilties as a member of the cabinet but rhetorical or not they were still questions and we weren't hearing about distinct differences between Liberal Democrats and Tories.
At a local level I think we should get muscular too and let the electorate know who they were voting for. In my local ward we had a candidate from one party who didn't want to stand and didn't want to win but just missed out. He looked like the most worried man at the count. Another young man from another party did well but told me he lived away - he couldn't have won too. There were at least two paper candidates that I never saw so I never spoke with them. However I have it on good authority that they did not wish to win. The good news is that I think that those who won actually wanted to win.
What this means is that our electoral system really is on its knees. In some places it is obvious and there were no elections. In some places it is disguised because of paper candidates and candidates who put out leaflets but didn't want to win.
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