History will judge Nick Clegg for selling-out and propping up the Tories but he should be remembered as the man who got the liberal back into government

There’s been a lot of Liberal Democrat in-fighting in the wake of the party’s poor local election results and disastrous European scores where they were decimated to a single MEP.

Party members are divided over the issue of Nick Clegg. The elephant in the room. Do we get rid of the man who is now considered politically toxic or stick by the man who has helped raised the tax threshold in the UK to £10,000?

That is the question facing Lib Dems up and down the country – what few of them there are left, that is. 

The comment sections of different newspapers reveal the level of Clegg’s popularity – or lack of it. Approval ratings only add statistical value to these raging, know-it-all commentators. He scores just +10 amongst Lib Dems and that drops to -49 among the wider electorate.

National newspapers are today running with a story that Clegg will lose his Sheffield Hallam seat. The source of this information?  A conveniently timed anti-Clegg survey. Yet the local election results indicate that Clegg will survive.

The right-wing press would have you believe that Clegg is keen to hand over all sovereign power to Brussels and that he constantly stops the Tories from pushing through with their plans while the left-wing will have you believe that he is a man who sold his soul in exchange for a ministerial Jaguar.

(c) express.co.uk/PA

The reality is rather different. He has done well on some things and badly on others. He has achieved manifesto promises and reneged on others. He has made mistakes but, the last time I checked, we all do.

As part of the coalition, Clegg and the Lib Dems have raised the tax threshold to £10,000, set up the Pupil Premium, introduced free school meals, scrapped ID cards and played a role in the gradual economic recovery.

The bad? Tuition fees, the Royal Mail sell-off and not killing of the social and health care bill and the bedroom tax.

A mixed scorecard but surely that was to be expected from a coalition – the likely outcome from the only real option available in 2010.

Clegg has been hammered by the media and I fear that anyone who would take over now would receive the same treatment.

But with his political future uncertain it’s appropriate to discuss what his legacy will be.

To many he will be the man who gave David Cameron’s party a mandate, pissed-off a large section of the Lib Dem support and sold-out the many students who supported him.

I hope that he will be remembered by some as the man who returned the liberals to government after a lengthy stretch on the sidelines, a man who managed to implement some of the manifesto pledges he trumpeted during the 2010 campaign.

They say a week is a long time in politics so 11 months is a lifetime. The 2015 General Election is likely to be the most exciting and unpredictable yet.

It could end with Clegg still as Deputy PM and leader working with Labour or it could be that the party ends up with a handful of MPs and Tim Farron as the new man in charge.

They used to say that nobody knew the leader of the Liberal Democrats. I imagine there’ll be plenty wishing those days could return.