David Owen was a Labour Foreign Secretary, then one of the founders of the SDP and subsequently party leader, before leading a rump of the SDP after opposing the party’s merger with the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Democrats.
For a few astonishing days in March 1962, the Liberal Party led the Conservative and Labour parties in the opinion polls, the only time it had ever done so since polls were invented. … Read the full post »
There is something a little incongruous about the notion of the Liberal Democrats’ oldest angry young man donning the ermine of a peer of the realm. … Read the full post »
Perhaps it is not surprising that Shirley Williams picks election day in October 1964 as the high point of her long political career. … Read the full post »
In the 1959 general election just 2,000 votes separated Ludovic Kennedy from becoming Liberal MP for Rochdale, and possibly a future party leader. … Read the full post »
Liberal Democrats, and before them Social Democrats and Liberals too, are well used to a surge in poll figures seeing them overtake another party and so generate a flurry of excited predictions about the future of British politics. … Read the full post »
Barring some unexpected major political event, this will be Nick Clegg’s last national political statement of the year. … Read the full post »
In recently praising Jeremy Browne for arguing that the Liberal Democrats must guard against being pigeonholed as only being interested in issues that do not win much public support, I added a caveat about how his broader vision of what the Liberal Democrats should be for (social mobility – yuk) showed how inconsistent senior Liberal Democrats … Read the full post »
Nick Clegg said, “We want a truly open society, in which every man and woman will be able to go as far as their talent, ambition and effort take them”. … Read the full post »
Liberal Democrat Newswire #11 is a special Birmingham Lib Dem conference preview, featuring three doctors: Owen, Harris and Who. … Read the full post »
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, wearing a Yes To Fairer Votes badge, closed the party’s Sheffield conference with a return to his theme of Alarm Clock Britain. … Read the full post »