When Vince Cable resigned yesterday as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats, he claimed he was doing so to ‘focus’ on his role as Business Secretary. Fair enough, but what he has delivered is actually a blessing in disguise for a party in limbo. To tell the truth, the Lib Dems have spent their entire 22 year existence as a divided entity. For years, they have papered over the cracks of the ideological split that runs through them, hoping that by the time they actually have power to exercise the divisions that remain from the Liberal/SDP merger of 1988 will be forgotten. They have not. And worse still, they have obtained power in the unlikeliest of ways (a coalition with the Conservatives) far sooner than even the most optimistic party loyalist could have imagined. The result of this is unprecedented strain on the split that is best embodied by the two components of the party’s name, on the one hand, the ‘Liberals’ and on the other, the ‘Democrats’.

Let’s start with the ‘Liberals’. Nick Clegg himself is perhaps the best embodiment of this free-market approach to politics. The Liberals represent the right of the party, and sit firmly in the centre-ground of British politics. They take a pragmatic approach of policy (hence the hasty marriage of convenience with the Tories) and, rather like a Liberal fore father John Locke, view tolerance as a pragmatic response to diversity. The publication of the ‘Orange book’ in 2004 symbolized the re-emergence of this wing of the party, and having spent years ‘to the left of Labour’ under Charles Kennedy’s leadership, Nick Clegg’s election in 2007 embodied, at least, a minor shift towards the classical liberal model. It is little surprise that it is a contributor to the ‘Orange book’ – David Laws, who has been handed the job of George Osborne’s hatchet man in the new cabinet.

On the other side of the divide, the fiercely democratic remnants of the SDP remain keen to stay firmly on the left of British politics. Best embodied by the likes of Chris Huhne and Simon Hughes, it was this contingent of social democrats who were most resistant to the coalition with the Conservatives, and it was this grouping who insisted on preserving the party doctrine of gaining the approval of every man and his dog before entering into such a pact. Traditionally, the ‘savage cuts’ of Clegg have been a far cry from the tax and spend ethos of the party’s left wing. Scrapping trident, the mansion tax and opposition of nuclear power are all bastions of this particular ideological sect.

This divide conjures up a problem for the party. On the one hand, some might argue that every party has its own internal divisions, and this is true. However, whereas the other major parties contain divisions within one key political philosophy (conservatism, socialism etc), the Lib Dems are a party with members from two different ideologies – liberalism and social democracy and one must question the staying power of a political force so deeply split. So heading into this summer’s deputy leadership contest, the party has a chance to decide what exactly it stands for. Will it elect an ‘orange’ who will cow-tow to Clegg’s pragmatic opportunism, or will they keep him in check by electing a candidate of the left. The decision (and the division) is theirs.