FORMER cabinet minister Shirley Williams said her party’s coalition deal with the Tories was right but ‘not easy to live with’ during a visit to see supporters in Poole.

Baroness Williams of Crosby was the special guest at a cream tea hosted by Annette Brooke, MP for Mid Dorset and North Poole, on Friday.

The former Lords leader of the Liberal Democrats, who started off her political career as a Labour MP and helped found the Social Democratic Party 30 years ago, spoke frankly on everything from the coalition to immigration, social housing and the future of the country.

Last Thursday, her party suffered a humiliating by-election result in Scotland, and a recent Guardian opinion poll indicated favour for the party is at a 14-year low.

Speaking to the Daily Echo, Baroness Williams said she was not concerned by the result, blaming the 4,000 fall in votes on Inverclyde’s constituency issues, which had set it up for a Labour vs. Scottish National Party tussle.

Baroness Williams said: “That was not a particularly strong campaign. We did not have many people to start with and it has always been a great solid Labour seat.”

She confessed she had never liked the coalition idea – telling Nick Clegg so as he dealt with the fallout of the 2010 election – but a trip to America convinced her that he was right, although it was still ‘not easy to live with’.

“It was a difficult choice,” Baroness Williams said. “I thought we should support a Conservative minority – the old ‘support and sustain’ tactic where you vote forward the money that people need but leave yourself free for your own commitment to a legislative programme.

“That would have been a good idea if the crisis had not been quite so acute. America cannot get anything through the House of Representatives and I realised the disastrous consequences of having bitterly opposed parties while trying to come to terms with the financial crisis.”

Clear lessons have been learnt, she believes. “With any piece of legislation we need to get the differences between parties clear from the outset,” she said, citing the Forestry Commission debacle as an example.

“It’s crucial to think through and consult before you shove it on the statute book.”

Pressed by a graduate on the controversial tuition fees u-turn, Baroness Williams said: “You should never, ever pledge something unless you absolutely know you can deliver.

“I think the election campaign leaders got that wrong, but out of naivety rather than viciousness.”

She said she understood the reaction to the ‘jarring’ public sector pensions reforms, and urged people to tell the party where they thought it had gone wrong and offer solutions. “Instead of moaning about it, build on the fact that you know these people who are struggling on Disability Living Allowances and say to the coalition: listen to what we have discovered here,” she said.