Archive for paddy ashdown

Paddy Ashdown’s eight steps to winning a Parliamentary constituency

3 February 2012 , ,
In December 1976 Paddy Ashdown put to the local party in Yeovil a plan for winning the constituency for which he had been recently selected and where the party was third at almost every election. Thirty-five and a bit years on, it still reads as a pretty good plan. 1. We should adopt a three-election strategy [...]

Ashdown, Glover and Williams on the party’s history

The latest edition of the Journal of Liberal History caries this account from me of the conference meeting which launched the new history of the party, Peace, Reform and Liberation. You can watch the meeting in full here. It would be a brave person who walked up to Paddy Ashdown or Shirley Williams and told them to [...]

VIDEO: Paddy Ashdown, Shirley Williams and Julian Glover on the Liberal Democrats, recession and The Guardian

You can now watch again in full one of the best fringe meetings from the party conference, which saw Paddy Ashdown, Shirley Williams and the then Guardian editorial writer Julian Glover launch a new history of the party and its predecessors, Peace, Reform and Liberation.* Julian Glover gave a very funny speech about his newspaper’s [...]
Paddy Ashdown

The Triple Lock: Where it came from, how it worked and its future

18 October 2011 ,
I’ve penned a piece for the Journal of Liberal History about the party’s so-called triple lock – the procedures agreed to ratify or reject agreements with other parties such as the coalition agreement. As the introductory blurb says: Fears over Paddy Ashdown’s talks with Labour in the late 1990s triggered the Liberal Democrats to introduce [...]
Peace, Reform and Liberation book cover

What to know more about the history of the Liberal Democrats, SDP and Liberals?

If so, then the new history of British Liberal politics, Peace, Reform and Liberation, is just the ticket. Launched at Liberal Democrat conference by Paddy Ashdown and Shirley Williams, it is a one-volume history of the Liberal Party and its antecedents. Currents in liberal thinking are also explained, with the book including biographies of key [...]

Gender balance amongst the Liberal Democrats: some evidence

3 October 2011 , , , ,
Over the weekend, Paul Head criticised the party’s Leadership Programme, saying, While the Candidate Leadership Programme seems like a good idea, giving candidates from underrepresented groups the support and training they need to go on and, hopefully, become MPs, I believe it is destined to failure for the same reasons that shortlists are not the answer. They [...]

“All-Women Shortlists May Be Necessary, Senior Lib Dems Accept”

So reports the Huffington Post: Senior Liberal Democrats have accepted that the party may need to resort to all-female shortlists or other tough measures to increase the representation of women and minority groups among its MPs… Tim Farron MP … said that he was “utterly embarrassed” that only seven of the party’s MPs were women. [...]
Peace, Reform and Liberation book cover

Paddy Ashdown, Shirley Williams and a new book make me childishly excited

12 September 2011 , , ,
With all due deference to the many other wonderful events coming up at the Liberal Democrat party conference, there is one that has me childishly excited. Monday evening, Paddy Ashdown and Shirley Williams will be speaking at the Liberal Democrat History Group fringe meeting where we launch the new history of British liberalism, Peace, Reform [...]

Lords reform: the Liberal Democrat trio announced

Over the weekend Mark Valladares blogged about the three Liberal Democrats being appointed to the Joint Committee of both Houses fo Parliament carrying out pre-legislative scrutiny committee on Lords reform: From the Lords, representing the constitutional wonk tendency (in a good way), Lord Tyler is the first of the two nominees. Paul has been leading [...]

Rory Bremner does Paddy Ashdown with the aid of a little song and dance

3 June 2011 , ,
Courtesy of YouTube, a musical trip down memory lane: