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LIberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie has been rattlin’ the cages at Holyrood since he took over the reins of the party in the immediate aftermath of their election disaster.

A keen hill runner, he has faced jokes aplenty about the mountain he has to climb in restoring the party’s fortunes in Scotland, as voter disenchantment over the UK coalition with the Tories shows little sign of abating.

But the former MP has not been resting on his laurels and has torn into the First Minister Alex Salmond on a range of issues. He used his opening address to Parliament to coin the phrase the “bulldozer administration” for the SNP majority at Holyrood, and to some, his approach has gone a bit too far considering he leads just five MSPs.

But the leaner group means he can move fast. Rennie has invariably led the criticism of the most powerful government since devolution, including over the extraordinary onslaught against the UK Supreme Court, the SNP splits over gay marriage and even Mr Salmond’s moves to distance Scotland from last week’s English riots.

It appears to have got under the First Minister’s skin, prompting an open SNP campaign to recruit disgruntled Lib Dems to turn Nat. Unfortunately for the Lib Dems this met with some success as five councillors switched to the SNP, having been elected as Lib Dems in 2007.

But the death knell has been sounding for the Lib Dems since May when they lost two-thirds of their MSPs – 11 seats – in parliament.

Here’s the conundrum for any Liberal Democrat leader in Scotland: do you distance yourself from your Westminster colleagues and the pact with the Tories or do you get in line behind the coalition as a way of limiting the worst excesses of the Tory right?

As an adviser to Liberal Democrat Scottish Secretary Michael Moore until recently, Rennie was always going to take a this approach. He is a keen supporter of the coalition and endorses the concessions which the party has been able to secure in office.

A difficult test looms in next May’s Scottish council election where the party could face another bloody nose from voters as the cuts in the economy continue to bite.

For Rennie, though, the outlook will perhaps be more long-term. First, he has to hope that the economy eventually recovers, unemployment shrinks and general prosperity returns before the next Scottish election in 2016. At the current rate, there appears to be no guarantee of that.

Secondly, voters will have to recognise the party’s role in securing this and come back to them at the ballot box. The Lib Dems initially faced greater flak than the Tories for the current austerity agenda and spending cuts. The nightmare scenario will be if David Cameron is able to hog the credit for any eventual boom. That would leave Rennie with a mountain to climb of Himalayan proportions.