'A day in power is worth a thousand years in opposition' says Liberal Democrats leader Tim Farron

Liberal Democrats leader Tim Farron has confirmed in an interview what we all assumed to be true: being a Lib Dem at the moment is miserable, and it's probably going to stay that way.

In an interview with The Times'Red Box (£), Farron, who was elected after deputy prime minister Nick Clegg stepped down from the post following colossal losses for the party in May's general election, said that the party could not regret its moment in the sun in the coalition government:

We learned it’s difficult, but a year or a day in power is worth a thousand years in opposition. You can’t make a massive difference. We’re not in power nationally, and it’s hugely frustrating.

The MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, who didn't take a government position under the coalition government, had been seen as wary of the Conservative-Lib Dem pact - as indeed many voters were, showing their disapproval of broken promises such as increasing student fees by leaving the party with just eight MPs after the conclusive Conservative majority in May last year.

Farron said he remains hopeful about the party's chances of a comeback, citing Justin Trudeau's Liberal party in Canada, who went from polling at a distant third to sweeping into office in October's election.

However, there's another parallel that Farron doesn't mention: in Australia in the 1990 election, the centre-left Democrat party, established to "keep the bastards honest", formed a coalition with more right-wing parties, bargaining away their integrity in the process.

By the next general election, the Democrats had been kicked out of government by the electorate - and they have been effectively unelectable ever since.

In 2015, the Australian Democrats were deregistered as a political party because they had not met the required threshold of 500 members.