“Tell me more about what the Liberal Democrats believe”. Whether it’s a possible new member, a potential council candidate or a new office volunteer asking, I’ve always found over the years that one of the trickier questions to answer. Not because of the inherent question, but rather because of the paucity of materials available to conveniently answer it.

There’s always been a simple short 1 or 2 sentence answer to hand (such as the slogan of the day or an extract from the preamble to the party’s constitution) or a really long answer available, such as Conrad Russell’s superb An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Liberalism. The former is often too short and the latter too time consuming really to work as an answer and so I along with many others have often reverted to using the party’s current list of top policies or campaigns as a substitute answer.

That’s sort-of ok, but doesn’t really address what the party’s beliefs are in a way that helps convert someone who likes our pothole repairs and regular leaflets into someone who understands and supports liberal democracy.

Alex Wilcock has at times produced some great paragraphs of text to use that try to do this (and it’s been great to see the ideas he’s sparked off with his latest one), and to compliment such efforts I’ve also therefore produced a new infographic.

It’s deliberately designed to provide people with a broad welcome into the party, providing some understanding of the debates they’re likely to come across whilst emphasising what people in the party agree on. I hope you find it useful!

(Click on the image to see it at a larger size.)

(If you would like a higher resolution version, for example for printing off as a poster, see the foot of the page here.)

UPDATE: There’s now also the great statement on what the Lib Dems believe produced by Your Liberal Britain. You can also sign up to my free 14-part weekly email series on Lib Dem philosophy.