IN 1931 the Liberals swallowed Tory austerity and were destroyed as a political force for a generation.

Will 2015 be a repeat? Undoubtedly the Liberal Democrats have blood on their hands over austerity since 2010. No doubt they will say that they stopped the Tories from being far worse.

But stopped what ? Not the bedroom tax, for example. Even their support for raising the threshold over which income tax is paid was regressive, mostly benefiting the wealthy. Worse, for many low earners most of the gain was clawed back in tax-credit reductions.

On education spending, welcome though the pupil premium is, they achieved nothing on the much bigger issue of school funding allocations.

And local campaigning on the NHS has been rendered necessary because of Tory reforms.

Remember there was to be no top-down reorganisation of the NHS and no central closure of A&E and maternity wards.

But the Liberal Democrats allowed Lansley’s NHS Bill to pass virtually unchanged.

In parliament, time after time the Liberal Democrats acquiesced over cuts that austerity brought and which have hit the poorest and the already-disadvantaged disproportionately — not much fairness in that.

M Farley (via email)