Mr Clegg has made the Lib Dems more liberal, or at least more realistic, in economic matters.
Former Liberal leader and now Lib Dem peer Lord Steel of Aikwood said it was "quite ridiculous" for the government to expect peers to deal with the report stage in the time left available.
Here, paradoxically, it was the decline of the Liberal Democrat vote which undid the Lib Dems' ruling "agreement" with Labour.
It might even be possible to strike a coalition deal with the Liberal Democrats which would allow the Lib Dems to campaign against independence in a referendum.
Under the coalition deal which Labour's 55 members of the Parliament agreed on with the 17 Liberal Democrats, Jim Wallace, a Lib Dem, will take over as first minister while Mr Dewar is convalescing.
Liberal Democrat party president Tim Farron told local Lib Dem parties to start selecting the day after Nick Clegg withdrew his support for redrawing constituencies.
The right-left divide, a product of the 1988 merger of the Liberal and Social Democratic parties, means the Lib Dems have no clear identity on which to draw when making policy.
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The Lib Dems are passionate about their pro-Europeanism, their liberal take on crime and their dovishness on military and foreign matters.
The two major parties which are entirely unambiguous in their opposition to HS2 are the Greens and the UK Independence Party: UKIP, currently riding high in the polls, are fielding more candidates in Staffordshire than the Liberal Democrats while the Greens are fielding more than the Lib Dems in Warwickshire and Worcestershire.
But after going to the wire to support secret courts, I suspect the Lib Dem leader will want to use another issue to re-establish his liberal credentials.
Dane Clouston has campaigned for three decades to allow everybody to have just such a citizen's inheritance, and has persuaded the Liberal Party, the small rump leftover from the creation of the Lib Dems, to adopt it as policy.
Since the start of the by-election campaign, the party has faced further difficulties with former Liberal Democrat chief executive Lord Rennard facing allegations of sexually inappropriate behaviour by female Lib Dem activists.
Following criticism last year, the Liberal Democrats changed their internship programme so it now pays the minimum wage, although some Lib Dem MPs, and MPs from other parties, still advertise internships which pay expenses only.
BBC: Minister Jo Swinson passes 'illegal intern list' to HMRC
The Liberal Democrats are drawing a parallel with Tatton at the 1997 general election, when the Lib Dems and Labour withdrew to allow anti-sleaze candidate Martin Bell a clear run against Conservative former minister Neil Hamilton.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire, a Lib Dem spokesman winding up for the government, admitted that it was "an uncomfortable position for a Liberal to have to stand up and defend limitations on immigration".
Despite the Liberal Democrats' enthusiasm for proportional electoral systems, which tend to produce compromise and coalition government, the Lib Dems are making a lot of uncompromising noise about their election manifesto pledge to abolish tuition fees.
Councillor Gerald Vernon-Jackson, leader of the Liberal Democrats in local government, welcomed the decision to protect council budgets in the next year but said Lib Dem councillors would continue to lobby against the extra 2% cut.
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