I would have thought that those who were going to leave the Liberal Democrats, have already done so. The effect of joining the coalition has been bad, in electoral terms, but not as catastrophic as some political opponents hope.

The party overall has been weakened, but I am not (at the national level) seeing the shredding process, which tore apart the Liberal Party between the World Wars.

Then you had cross-cutting schisms, with the Asquith-Lloyd George division of the 1920s giving way to a three way factional split in the 1930s (mainstream Liberals, Liberal Nationals and the Lloyd George family group). There were members of all these groups who ended up going left, right or forward. For example of Lloyd George's MP children, Gwilym ended up as a Conservative and Megan as a Labour MP.