Allan Massie: Nick Clegg is right to carry on regardless LIB Dem leader deserves plaudits not brickbats for forming coalition, and his detractors need to grow up and accept it, writes Allan Massie. A few days after the coalition was formed I was told by an acquaintance, encountered in the Market Square in Selkirk, that he would never vote Liberal Democrat again. They said that voting for them was the way to keep the Tories out and now they've gone into an alliance with them. Strictly speaking, he had not been deceived. The contest in our constituency was indeed between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, with Labour and the SNP also-rans. So it was sensible for anyone wanting to cast an anti-Tory vote to opt for Lib Dem candidate Michael Moore. Nevertheless, it was understandable that my friend felt cheated. Many who voted Lib Dem in 2010 doubtless felt as he did. Going into coalition with the Tories has cost the Lib Dems dearly. The mere fact of coalition has probably done them as much damage as their humiliating climbdown on tuition fees in England. Yet one wonders what people thought they were voting for when they backed the Lib Dems? For half a century since the Liberal revival began under Jo Grimond, the third party has been just that: the third party, with no prospect of ever forming a majority government. They talked for decades about the possibility of a hung parliament in which they would hold the balance of power. There were two elections - 1987 and 1992 - when this seemed on the cards. In 1997 Tony Blair was prepared to do a deal with Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown if Labour failed to get an overall majority. But there was no hung parliament and so nothing happened. At last in 2010 the hung parliament arrived. What was Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg to do? There was some talk of a rainbow coalition with Labour and the Nationalist parties. There was talk of a minority Conservative government with the Lib Dems offering qualified measure-by-measure support. And there was David Cameron's offer of a coalition. Clegg plumped for this and persuaded his party to approve. It was the right option. The Duke of Wellington, victor of Waterloo, was not a notably successful politician but he had one sound maxim: The King's (later the Queen's) Government must be carried on. This required that cherished policies might have to be abandoned in order that the administration had a majority in the Commons. Clegg acted on that maxim. Things were very shaky in the wake of the election, the money markets looking nervously at Britain's huge debt and deficit. Would they continue to finance borrowing or would they withdraw their confidence? The formation of a government that seemed capable of surviving and governing was essential if that confidence was to be retained. The national interest required a coalition. Admittedly many Lib Dems would have preferred alliance with Labour. Some previous leaders favoured that option. Yet it would have been a bad choice. The election results made two things clear: the Tories had not won but Labour had certainly lost. Moreover the rainbow coalition's majority would have been wafer-thin and precarious. It was unlikely the various parties could have agreed a programme, still less hold to it. Clegg and other leading Lib Dems recognised coalition meant sacrifices. Giving way on tuition fees was the first of these. Few remarked that this surrender would have been required if they had gone into coalition with Labour, for Labour, like the Tories, had committed itself to accepting the findings of the report by Lord Browne which Peter Mandelson had commissioned. Clegg's recent apology for his pledge to resist the imposition of fees has now damaged his reputation further. Nevertheless, he is right to say that the pledge was mistaken - mistaken because it could not have been fulfilled. There have been other failures since. The Lib Dems" constitutional reforms - electoral and of the Lords - have fallen by the wayside. To many who voted Lib Dem in 2010 and have since defected, it seems that the party has betrayed its principles and gained nothing. It is associated with the cuts inflicted on the public sector. It has become a Tory poodle, and Clegg is despised and reviled. The criticism is natural but ill-founded and unfair. The resentment with which the Tory Right views their coalition partners indicates Clegg is no poodle. He is held to have prevented the imposition of "real Tory policies" - on crime, immigration, and Europe especially. Moreover the Lib Dems have achievements to their credit: the gradual raising of the level at which people start to pay income tax is a Lib Dem policy that is being implemented - and one which a Tory government would not have enacted. They have also been a restraining influence on the anti-EU bias of the Conservatives. That Cameron's petulant veto last December has had no damaging consequences may be attributed to Lib Dem influence. The party still languishes in the polls. There is talk of replacing Clegg with Vince Cable, regarded as being to his left and more in tune with Labour than with the Tories. Yet the real reason for the discontent is that for the first time in its modern history the party has faced up to the demands of responsibility. It has lost its virginity and many are uncomfortable with the new reality. Lib Dem voters who don't accept this display nothing but their own immaturity. To govern, as the saying goes, is to choose, and choice often demands compromises. Two and a half years on, the coalition is enduring mid-term unpopularity, but it is still in being. The Queen's Government is being carried on. This is important, and Clegg deserves plaudits, not brickbats. Things are bad, but could be a lot worse, and would be if the Lib Dems lost their nerve. Clegg has always recognised that they are in it for the long haul. His party should back him, all the more so because the Tories criticise him so sharply - proof from the Lib Dem point of view that he is doing something right. Finally, the coalition has been good for the Unionist cause here in Scotland. Think how the SNP would have relished encounters with a Tory Secretary of State for Scotland.