Hmm. I think you'll find they facilitated Tory nastiness, rather than reduced it
No they reduced a lot of the crap the tories wanted to implement. The tories got the most votes, but not enough to be a stable government. The only other option was to have another re-election if Lib Dem didn't pair up with the Tories. That wouldn't have gone down well. Pairing up with Labour didn't seem viable/doable, not that there's much difference between Tory and Labour anymore anyway. New Labour are basically Old Tory.
I think Cameron was made up about the Lib Dems joining up as whatever shit the Tories did, LD got the blame even if they reduced the amount of shit being poured on top of us.
Anyway here a photo of Clegg the day before he drank from the poisoned chalice...
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