Mastering Politics: The Liberal Democrats
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Political parties aren’t the easiest part of politics to understand. But don’t worry, here at b**p we’ve got you covered.
The Liberal Democrats were formed in 1988 as a merge of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party and subscribe to the ideology of liberalism. Liberalism is a broad term, but in the context of the Lib Dems, it means they believe in freedom, an individual’s rights and the role of the government as an enabler, not a paternal or ‘over-involved’ figure in people’s lives.
Following the 2017 snap election, the Liberal Democrats reached over 100,000 members – a record in its history. Members of the Party pay a fee to vote in leadership elections and on policies of the party with the suggested yearly donation of £70, although you can pay less for a standard membership or if you are a concession.
Currently (December 2017), the Liberal Democrats have twelve MPs in Parliament, four more than they did in the 2015 General Election. Their leader is Jo Swinson and their major policy at the moment is to stop Britain leaving the European Union.
Liberal Democrat figures who have had a significant impact are:
— Nick Clegg, leader of the Lib Dems from 2007 to 2015 and Deputy Prime Minister from 2010 to 2015. Main achievements: the stable coalition government of 2010-15, the legalisation of same-sex marriage and tripling the cost of tuition fees, despite campaigning against it.
— Charles Kennedy, leader of the Lib Dems from 1999 to 2006 and a Member of Parliament from 1983 to 2015. Main achievements: campaigned against the Iraq War from the beginning, voted against the coalition government (the only Lib Dem MP to do so), warning that smaller parties tend to get crushed in such arrangements and was the most successful Lib Dem leader ever, winning 65 seats at the 2005 election.
— Paddy Ashdown, leader of the Lib Dems from 1988 to 1999. Main achievements: rebuilt the party in nine years from a “dead parrot” as leader he still managed to score, during the 1997 election, a 58 per cent satisfaction rating and kept the Lib Dems in the centre ground of politics, despite the fact that the Labour Party, under Tony Blair, proposed much of the same ideology.