British DUers: WHo are the Liberal Democrats?

[mot78]

I know you have Labour and the Tories, but I don't know much about the Liberal Democrats. Are they liberal, conservative, or moderate? Has there ever been a Lib Dem PM before?

[jpgray]

1. They are liberal, but I'll let one of our Brit DUers give specifics (nt)

[L3on]

2. Link

this seems to be a good link

The Liberal Democrats lean to the left on social policy and democratic rights. On other issues, I consider them to be conservative. Maybe a real Briton could give us more information :)


(edit: the link didn't work)

[mot78]

3. Maybe they are like the Libertarians

Socially liberal and economically conservative.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

4. Their history is long and convoluted.

Before the 1920's, the British political scene was dominated by two parties, the Conservative Party (Tories) and the Liberal Party. The rise of organized labour and the formation of the Labour Party sent the Liberals into a 50-year slump from the early 1920's onwards. From that point UK politics was polarized along roughly class-based lines, Socialist Labour vs Right-wing Conservative. With the Labour landslide in 1945, British Politics entered a 34 year period of consensus politics where both major parties gravitated towards the centre. This consensus broke down after the energy crisis of 1973-4 and the period of economic stagnation that came to a head under the hapless Callaghan Labour administration. With the victory of the stormtroopers of supreme neo-con evil under Margaret Thatcher, the consensus was smashed as the world's first neo-conservative administration set about in its attempt to dismantle the welfare state.
Labour reeled from its loss and splintered, with the main body of the party moving back to a more radical socialist path under new leader Michael Foot and the more moderate wing forming the Social Democratic Party under the Gang of Four (Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams). The new party entered into a pact with the Liberals, who had undergone a slight resurgence due to the Lib-Lab pact that propped up Callaghan's administration, in time for the 1983 election.
Hopes were high for a third party breakthrough in the 1983 election as Labour stumbled to its worse result in 60 years. The Liberal / SDP alliance took 26% of the vote just short of Labour's 28%, but due to the vagaries of the First Past The Post system, the alliance took 23 seats and Labour 209. The Tories, despite being outpolled by more than 10% by the left, achieved a landslide on 44% of the vote.
After that, the Alliance spluttered and eventually merged as the Liberal Democrats, a slightly left of centre party led by Social Democrat Charles Kennedy, a charismatic Highland Scot.
Due to the Labour party under Blair's move towards the centre, the Lib-Dems have moved slightly leftward towards a more radical outlook. In the most recent UK election, in 2001, the Lib Dems performed well, with 19% of the vote and 40 seats.

[mot78]

5. Thanks

I want to learn more about British and Canadian politics...at least in a Parliamentary system you don't have to worry about spoiler third parties (although having coalition governments must suck if new elections have to be called constatnly).

[rogerashton]

6. Thanks -- very complete response.

Two thoughts.

1) Given popular opposition to Iraq, and the difficulty the Tories have in that they support the invasion, is it possible that the LibDems might be a sleeper in a near-term election -- possibly even break through?

2) As for spoiler third parties (this response is to the next post just above) the '83 election looks a bit like somebody was a spoiler, with the center-left divided and the Tories winning with 44% -- but who was the spoiler, in that case? The problem is first-past-the-post, which is just as unpredictable in a parliamentary system as it is in ours -- we need PREFERENCE VOTING WITH INSTANT RUNOFFS.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

8. I don't live in the UK (I left in 1998) so I can't say for point #1.

For point #2, First Past the Post is all about vote efficiency. If you have two parties, one getting 44%, the other getting 54%, the latter party should win a sizeable majority, unless it's vote is massively concentrated in one area. However, if you have three parties, and the split is 44/28/26 like the 1983 UK election, the party with 44% of the vote is likely to recieve a sizeable majority of the seats, as under FPTP, 44 beats 28 rather than facing a combination of 28 and 26. As a new party, the Liberal/SDP Alliance had a widespread voter base across the UK, while Labour votes were concentrated in urban areas. Therefore Labour wins nine times the number of seats that the Alliance won. Another good example is the Canadian election of 1988 which was considered by many to be a referendum on Free Trade. In that election, Brian Mulroney's PC's won 43% of the vote, with the Liberals taking 32% and the NDP 20%. Both the NDP and Liberals were opposed to Free Trade, but as the split ended up 169 PC, 83 Lib, 43 NDP. Despite the pro-Free Trade side losing the popular vote 43-52, Free Trade became a reality - solely due to FPTP.
In the 1979 Canadian Election, the Liberals won the popular vote over the PC's 40% to 36%, yet the PC's formed a minority government 136-114.

[rogerashton]

9. Efficiency?

By "efficiency" I assume you mean that, as a rule, coalitions need nor be formed. Why is that efficient?

So you get a government opposed by 55% or more of the voting populace -- and that is efficient?

[Screaming Lord Byron]

10. No. I meant it in a purely scientific sense.

An example. Labour gets 28% of the vote and 209 seats. The Alliance gets 26% of the vote and 23 seats. Clearly Labour has the superior vote efficiency under the electoral system, to a factor of nine. To clarify, I am against First Past the Post for these reasons, among others. FPTP rewards parties that have a geographically concentrated vote and penalizes those with a broad-based geographically diverse vote.

[the Kelly Gang]

7. Lib Dems are the only real liberals now..Labour under Blair are

radical conservatives.
eg..Blair has delighted in continuing privatization that would make his heroine Margaret Thatcher ( the greatest UK political villain of the last century) proud.