Crumbs of comfort are hard to find for Liberal Democrats looking at the smouldering wreckage of a series of election campaigns.

Hundreds of councillors have bitten the dust, the Newark by-election was a disaster and the party's two Yorkshire seats in the European Parliament are now history.

All this apparently endless pain is pay back time for a breach of promise – going into coalition with the Tories and the tuition fees débâcle.

But hold on, what about the central promise to deliver a fairer, better society and rein in the worst excesses of the Tories? Those demands are being met time after time.

Blood letting at the ballot box ignores what is being achieved, not to mention the rebellion of at least 22 Liberal Democrat MPs who refused to support the rise in tuition fees. Had I been in the happy position to vote, there is no way on this earth I would ever have backed the increase.

Commitments made by the Liberal Democrats that have gone straight from the pages of the party's manifesto to put pounds into the pockets of people who need it most include:

• Delivering a £700 a year tax cut to 24 million people, increasing to £800 in 2015.

• Better pensions – stopping decades of sliding value under both Labour and the Tories

• A £2.5 billion pupil premium for schools to help our children

• Free school meals on the way for younger kids, saving hard up families hundreds of pounds

Good stuff in Government – there really is some – has Liberal Democrat written all over it. The worst examples, the bedroom tax and hand-outs for the wealthy, have been insisted on by the Tories.

Viewed in the wonky media mirror held up to the electorate, credit for anything positive is given to the Tories and condemnation for the negative piled onto the Liberal Democrats. The distribution of blame and praise is the exact reverse of where it belongs – as demonstrated by the European elections.

A study of work rates just before we went to the polls showed Liberal Democrat MEPs to be the hardest working and UKIP members on average the least productive and most expensive. The value for money rating of the Liberal Democrats was eight out of 10, higher than the Tories and Labour, and virtually twice that of UKIP.

UKIP, with half the work rate, almost doubled its seats, topping the poll with 24, and the Liberal Democrats were all but annihilated. In an act of national self-harm, people who voted – and the many who stayed at home – dumped those working hardest for us and our country in favour of the people who do the least.

Mr Farage has done us all one favour, demonstrating that when people do take the trouble to vote it is possible to kick the apple cart over and transform the political landscape. It also showed yet again that had more people bothered to vote the results could have been completely different.

They say it is always darkest before the dawn – right now for the Liberal Democrats the outlook nationally is pitch black. Seeds of the sun rise are being sown in strongholds where voters have decided that politics without the party would be a poorer place.

It's time for a fight back. Bitter pills have been swallowed, compromises made, but against all the odds Liberal Democrats have provided stable government and an improving economy – it's been a bumpy ride.

The party has proved, despite everything, to be a force for good.

May the force be with you.