Repeat performance?

I posted in January about what I saw as the foolishness of the coalition not fighting by-elections during this parliament as a coalition - in other words putting up a single candidate to represent both of them.  It's happened again - in Thursday's Barnsley by-election the Conservatives came third and the LibDems sixth, but combine their vote and they would have come second, which given that this was a rock-solid Labour seat was always the best they could have hoped for. It just seems so obvious to me.