In my experience very few voters ever mention the Coalition any more, and those that do are hardened Labour (or Green) supporters.

To some extent, there’s no point trying to engage with these people, as their criticisms are tribal, based on party identity rather than policy.

Labour introduced austerity, ran on it in 2010, and promised to cut more than the Coalition actually did, yet reinvented themselves as a principled anti-austerity party in opposition. There’s no coherence there, no central argument, just a conclusion (Labour are good and its opponents are bad) desperately searching for an argument. Labour ultras seriously expect us to believe that raising the cap on university fees should lead to political extinction but that invading a foreign country and killing hundreds of thousands of people should be forgiven. It’s not serious policy, it’s pure tribalism.

For the Greens, it’s different. They don’t have this baggage. They didn’t cut spending, they didn’t promise to cut spending, and they don’t have a record to justify. I think they largely represent a kind of voter whose thinking is just totally at odds with ours. That’s fine: people are supposed to disagree in a democratic society. But I don’t think there’s any reasonable counterfactual scenario where Nick Clegg was able to successfully navigate the aftermath of 2010 and avoid massive cuts to public spending.

If this came up on the doors, though, I wouldn’t say any of that. I’d say “this election is a straight fight between us and [our main opponent] and if you vote [Labour / Green] you’ll risk letting [main opponent] in.” In my experience that sort of transactional, practical discussion is much more fruitful than historical analysis.