Breakthrough: the Liberal Democrat performance in the 2024 election
January 27, 2025 / 06:00 PM
David Lloyd George Room, National Liberal Club
1 Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE
The outcome of the general election on 4 July 2024 was extraordinary. Compared to the 2019 election, the Liberal Democrats’ share of the vote rose by less than 1 per cent, to 12.2 per cent, but the number of MPs jumped from 11 (plus 4 by-election gains) to 72, the highest number since 1923.
Highly effective targeting of campaigning resources and a narrowly focused message, combined with an unprecedented collapse in the Conservative vote and a high degree of tactical voting by anti-Tory voters meant that, for the first time ever, the first-past-the-post electoral system did not seriously disadvantage the party. With 10.9% of the total number of MPs, the discrepancy between Liberal votes and seats is the smallest since 1910. Traditional areas of strength in south-west and northern England and northern Scotland lost in 2015 were regained, and joined by new seats in East Anglia and, especially, in southern England.
Discuss the Liberal Democrat campaign and what the result means for the party with Professor Paula Surridge (Bristol University) and Dave McCobb (Director of Field Campaigns, Liberal Democrats). Chair: Lord Wallace of Saltaire.The meeting will start at 1830, following the AGM of the Liberal Democrat History Group at 1800. The agenda and accompanying papers for the AGM are available here.
For those unable to participate, Zoom access will be available; you must register here (the same link will work for both the AGM and the speaker meeting). (Online access is limited to 100 people, so don’t leave it too late to register!) For in-person participation, you do not need to register. You do not need to be a subscriber to the Journal of Liberal History to attend the meeting (apart from the AGM).Friends or Enemies, Allies or Competitors? Liberals and Labour 1903–2019
September 15, 2024 / 11:30 AM
Empress Room, Grand Hotel
97–99 Kings Road, Brighton BN1 2FW
The history of the association between the Liberal Party / Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party features electoral pacts (both formal and informal), support for minority governments, participation in coalitions – and periods of bitter enmity. So are Liberals and Labour friends or enemies, allies or competitors?
The long and complex relationship between Liberals and Labour is discussed with David Laws (MP for Yeovil 2001–15 and minister in the Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition government 2010 and 2012–15) and Jim Wallace (Lord Wallace of Tankerness, Deputy First Minister of Scotland in the Liberal Democrat-Labour coalition government, 1999–2005). Chair: Wendy Chamberlain MP.
The meeting also marked the launch of David Laws’ new book, Serpents, Goats and Turkeys: 100 years of Liberal-Labour relations.
Lloyd George, Herbert Samuel and Palestine: background and legacy
July 25, 2024 / 06:30 PM
National Liberal Club
1 Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE.
What role did Liberals play in the Middle East settlement after the First World War? In 1917, the Lloyd George Coalition Government announced its support for the establishment of a ‘national home for the Jewish people’ in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population. This was the ‘Balfour Declaration’, named after Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour. After the defeat and dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, the new League of Nations established a mandate for British administration of the territories of Palestine and Transjordan, and Britain governed the region until 1948. The first High Commissioner was Herbert Samuel, a former Liberal MP and minister, and later (1929–35) leader of the Liberal Party. He held the High Commissioner post from 1920 to 1925. Discuss these topics with Dr Peter Shambrook, an independent scholar and historical consultant to the Balfour Project, which works to advance equal rights for all in Palestine/Israel. He is the author of Policy of Deceit: Britain and Palestine, 1914–1939 (2023). Chair: Layla Moran MP, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for foreign affairs.Greening Liberalism
March 15, 2024 / 08:15 PM
Meeting Room 4, Novotel York Centre
Fishergate, York YO10 4FD
The history of Liberal and Liberal Democrat environmental thinking How and when did environmental policy become important to British political parties, and to the Liberal Party, SDP and Liberal Democrats in particular? Speakers: Professor Neil Carter (York University) and Baroness Parminter. Chair: Keith Melton (Green Liberal Democrats). You can view the accompanying slides hereThe 1847 Financial Crisis and the Irish Famine
January 29, 2024 / 06:30 PM
Lady Violet Room, National Liberal Club
1 Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE
The Irish famine of the 1840s remains the worst humanitarian crisis in the United Kingdom’s history. Within six years of the arrival of the potato blight in Ireland in 1845, more than a quarter of its people had died or emigrated.
Despite this, Lord John Russell’s Whig government decided in spring 1847 – long before the famine ended – to cut Treasury spending on public relief efforts. The move is generally attributed by economic historians to the pervasive influence of ‘laissez-faire’ ideas on Russell and his colleagues. But they also faced a deepening financial crisis, which severely limited the government’s options. The Bank Charter Act of 1844 required all bank notes issued by the Bank of England to be fully backed by gold. A major harvest failure in Ireland and England the previous year had led to large price increases and trade deficits, which had in turn caused a sharp drain of gold reserves from the Bank of England in March and April 1847. The Bank responded by lifting the discount rate at which it would lend money to other banks. This led to a drastic curtailment of available commercial credit and contributed to the collapse of numerous businesses in the autumn.
By October 1847, Russell and his cabinet faced a choice: between suspending the Bank Charter Act to permit the Bank of England to discount more freely and to issue banknotes in greater volume, or sticking to economic orthodoxy. They also had to tread carefully through the two crises because the government lacked a parliamentary majority.
Dr Charles Read (Faculty of History, University of Cambridge and author of The Great Famine in Ireland and Britain’s Financial Crisis (2022)) and Liam Kennedy (Emeritus Professor of History at Queen’s University, Belfast) discuss the Russell government’s response to the 1847 financial crisis and the Irish Famine.
What Have the Liberals Ever Done For Us? Book Launch
September 23, 2023 / 08:15 PM
Meyrick Suite, Bournemouth International Centre (BIC)
Launch of the Liberal Democrat History Group’s new concise guide to the greatest Liberal achievements, from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries.
Speakers: Layla Moran MP, Sarah Olney MP, Wendy Chamberlain MP, Baroness Barker. Chair: Lord Wallace of Saltaire.
The Strange Death of Liberal England Revisited
July 10, 2023 / 06:30 PM
Lounge, National Liberal Club
1 Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE
George Dangerfield’s The Strange Death of Liberal England, published in 1935, became one of the most influential accounts of the Liberal Party’s demise as a party of government. Dangerfield claimed that by ‘the end of 1913 Liberal England was reduced to ashes’ by three forms of political turbulence and upheaval: the threat of civil war in Ireland; the campaign for women’s suffrage; and an unprecedented wave of strikes.
But in recent decades many historians have taken issue with Dangerfield’s thesis and some point out that liberal values, and the Liberal Party, endured in the inter-war years and after.
Vernon Bogdanor (Research Professor at the Centre for British Politics and Government at King’s College London and author of The Strange Survival of Liberal Britain: Politics and Power Before the First World War) and Richard Toye (Professor of History at the University of Exeter) discuss Liberal politics in the early twentieth century. Chair: Anne Perkins (journalist and historian).
Shirley Williams: Liberal Lion and Trailblazer
March 17, 2023 / 08:15 PM
Meeting Room 3 & 4, Novotel York Centre
Fishergate, York YO10 4FD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2XK6dWTFlIShirley Williams, part of the ‘Gang of Four’ who founded the SDP and former leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords, was one of the UK’s best-loved politicians. She championed numerous progressive causes and for decades was an inspiration to millions of liberals.
Mark Peel (author, Shirley Williams: The Biography), Lord Tom McNally and Baroness Julie Smith discuss her life, beliefs and legacy. Chair: Baroness Kate Parminter.
Forgotten Liberal Heroes: Sir Edward Grey and Richard Haldane
January 30, 2023 / 07:00 PM
Violet Bonham Carter Room, National Liberal Club
1 Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51pobLIraVgThe Liberal governments of Henry Campbell-Bannerman and H.H. Asquith included many ‘big beasts’. Sir Edward Grey served as Foreign Secretary and remains the longest-serving holder of the office. He maintained good relations with France and Russia at a time of great instability in Europe. When his efforts to avert conflict failed, in 1914, Grey persuaded a divided cabinet to support Britain’s entry to the First World War.
Richard Haldane was Secretary for War and created the Territorial Army and the British Expeditionary Force. As Lord Chancellor after 1912 he pursued a series of judicial reforms. He was also a co-founder of the UK university system.
Both have a credible case for being regarded as Liberal heroes. But Grey’s record has been strongly criticised in recent years and Haldane is largely forgotten.
Thomas Otte (University of East Anglia and author of Statesman of Europe: A Life of Sir Edward Grey) and John Campbell OBE (author of Haldane: The Forgotten Statesman Who Shaped Modern Britain) assess these Liberal politicians and their legacies. Chair: Layla Moran MP.
Was the Coalition a mistake? Why did we fail to stop Brexit?
October 7, 2022 / 06:30 PM
National Liberal Club
1 Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE
Launch of Partnership & Politics in a Divided Decade, by husband-and-wife team Vince Cable and Rachel Smith. This new book tells the inside story of Vince Cable’s political career during the turbulent decade of the 2010s. The book covers Vince’s time as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills in the Liberal Democrat – Conservative coalition government, from 2010 to 2015. Having lost his seat in the calamitous 2015 election, Vince returned to Parliament in 2017, and six weeks later was elected leader of the Liberal Democrats. The book includes his time as party leader and the Liberal Democrats’ role in the attempts to force a second referendum on the terms of the Brexit deal. Chair/interviewer: Anne Perkins, journalist and historian.The fall of the Lloyd George coalition
July 11, 2022 / 06:30 PM
Lady Violet Room, National Liberal Club
1 Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE
2022 marks the centenary of the departure from office of the last Liberal to hold the post of Prime Minister; on 19 October 1922 David Lloyd George resigned after six years as premier. His fall followed the decision of Conservative MPs, meeting in the Carlton Club earlier that day, to end the post-war coalition.
Discuss why the Lloyd George coalition fell with Dr Matthew Johnson (Associate Professor of Modern British History, University of Durham). Chair: Baroness Liz Barker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx3p4Knd1x0
Working with Labour: The Liberal Party and the Balance of Power 1923-31
March 11, 2022 / 05:40 PM
Liberal Democrat spring conference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdCcEP5d8ag The 1920s were a challenging decade for the Liberal Party. With the advance of Labour, the Liberals were now the third force in British politics. The Asquith and Lloyd George factions united to contest the 1923 general election as one party, but tensions remained. The election resulted in a hung parliament, with the Liberals holding the balance of power. They opted to sustain Ramsay MacDonald’s minority Labour government, but the party remained divided over the decision. The Labour government fell the following year and the Conservative Party won a landslide victory in the ensuing general election, with the Liberals suffering heavy losses. After the 1929 general election, MacDonald formed another minority Labour government, supported once more by the Liberal Party – which, yet again, led to division and dissent among Liberal factions. Join Professor Philip Williamson (Durham University) and Michael Meadowcroft (former Liberal MP) to discuss the Liberal Party’s dilemmas and choices. Chair: Wendy Chamberlain MP. This is a fringe meeting at the Liberal Democrats’ federal conference, which be held online, via the Hopin online conference platform. It will be open to anyone participating in the conference; to register, click here. You do not need to register separately for this meeting.
The 1992 General Election
January 31, 2022 / 06:30 PM
Online via Zoom
The general election of 1992 was the first contested by the Liberal Democrats, who had been formed from the merger of the Liberal Party and the SDP just four years before. The new party entered the contest buoyed by parliamentary by-election victories, impressive local election results in 1991, and the high popularity of their leader, Paddy Ashdown. The party fought an effective campaign, but the election result was disappointing: the Liberal Democrats finished with fewer seats and a lower share of the vote than the Liberal-SDP Alliance had achieved in 1987, and the Conservatives unexpectedly won a fourth term in office. Compared to the dark days of the post-merger period, however, when the party had come a distant fourth in the Euro elections in 1989, perhaps the result was not so bad. Thirty years on, join Alison Holmes (General Election campaign co-ordinator for the Liberal Democrats) and Dennis Kavanagh (Emeritus Professor of Politics, University of Liverpool and co-author of The British General Election of 1992) to discuss the 1992 general election and its significance. Chair: Lord Don Foster (first elected as MP for Bath in the 1992 election). The meeting will start at 7.00pm, following the AGM of the Liberal Democrat History Group at 6.30pm. The meeting will be held online via Zoom. Pre-registration is essential: register here. We have an upper limit on the number of participants, and will close registration when we reach it; if you are unable to register, the video of the meeting will be available on our Facebook page and via our website shortly afterwards.
The two Davids: Steel versus Owen
September 17, 2021 / 05:35 PM
Liberal Democrat autumn conference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqInGwjf_pk In 1981 the alliance between the Liberal Party and the newly founded SDP was agreed; the two parties would fight elections together on a joint platform with join candidates. Between 1983 and 1987, however, the working relationship between the Liberal leader, David Steel, and his SDP counterpart, Dr David Owen, became increasingly marked by tension and distrust. Steel became steadily more frustrated at Owen’s resistance to joint selection of candidates, and any convergence on policy proposals. The Liberal Party and the SDP clashed over some issues, most notably nuclear weapons. In particular, Owen strongly opposed any long-term moves to merge the two parties. The clash became painfully obvious during the 1987 general election campaign, when Steel ruled out supporting a minority Thatcher government while Owen was adamant that Labour was unfit to govern. The results of the election were disappointing for both parties. The leadership tensions ultimately wrecked the Alliance. Discuss what went wrong with Sir Graham Watson (Steel’s former Head of Office) and Roger Carroll (former SDP Communications Director). Chair: Christine Jardine MP.
Liberalism in the United States
July 6, 2021 / 06:30 PM
What is political liberalism in the United States? The original concept was the protection of people from arbitrary power, support for the free market and advocacy of religious tolerance. But that started to change in the early twentieth century, when American liberals joined with progressives in advocating government intervention in the economy and social legislation. The presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 to 1945 confirmed that American liberalism would be based on using the market economy to deliver mass prosperity and active government to promote greater equality. FDR’s version of liberalism became America’s national creed and for three decades, the welfare state expanded massively. But in 1981, the new President, Ronald Reagan declared, ‘Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem’. Most Americans seemed to agree and, despite some interruptions, a powerful surge from the right has dominated American politics ever since. The word ‘liberal’ is now a term of abuse in the country’s political discourse. Join us to discuss the origins, development and challenges of American liberalism with Helena Rosenblatt (Professor of History at The Graduate Center, City University of New York and author of The Lost History of Liberalism) and James Traub (journalist and author of What Was Liberalism? The Past, Present and Promise of a Noble Idea). Chair: Layla Moran MP (Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesperson) This will be an online meeting, held over Zoom. You must register in advance to participate; register here.
Back from the dead: the Liberal Party in the 1950s
March 19, 2021 / 05:40 PM
Liberal Democrat spring conference
In 1951, the Liberal Party’s existence was in grave doubt. At the October general election, the party contested a mere 109 seats, and only six MPs were returned. The party was badly divided over basic questions of strategy, and membership and morale were low. The late 1950s saw an upturn in the Liberals’ fortunes. In March 1962, they won a sensational by-election victory at Orpington and, soon after, reached 25 per cent in the Gallup poll. The party’s performance at local elections was similarly impressive and it claimed a record 350,000 members. Join Lord William Wallace of Saltaire and Mark Egan (Greffier of the States of Jersey) to discuss how the Liberal Party survived a near-death experience and revived. Chair: Baroness Liz Barker.
Asquith versus Lloyd George
February 1, 2021 / 07:00 PM
Online meeting, via Zoom. To register, see link below.
On 7 December 1916, H.H. Asquith was replaced as Prime Minister by David Lloyd George. The change followed mounting disquiet over the conduct of the First World War, and Lloyd George’s demands that a small committee, not including Asquith, should direct the war effort. Lloyd George forced the issue by resigning from the coalition government. Unionist ministers sided with Lloyd George and indicated their willingness to serve in a government led by him. The Liberal Party remained divided until the end of the war and beyond. The party fought the next two general elections as two separate groups and the reunion that finally came, in 1923, was, in Asquith’s words, ‘a fiction if not a farce’. Was the split between Asquith and Lloyd George caused by their contrasting personalities, or by substantive disagreements over management of the war? Or did their rivalry reflect deeper divisions between different Liberal traditions? Join David Laws and Damian Collins MP to discuss the causes and consequences of the Asquith–Lloyd George rivalry. Both speakers contributed chapters to Iain Dale’s new book, The Prime Ministers: 55 Leaders, 55 Authors, 300 Years of History (Hodder & Stoughton, 2020), David Laws on Asquith and Damian Collins on Lloyd George. Chair: Wendy Chamberlain MP. This online meeting will start at 7.00pm, following the Liberal Democrat History Group’s AGM at 6.30pm. All welcome. To register, please click here. (Zoom webinar, kindly hosted for the History Group by Liberal Democrat HQ.)
Liberals with a radical programme: The post-war welfare state, Beveridge and the Liberal Party 75 years on
September 26, 2020 / 12:00 PM
2020 marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the 1945 general election and the beginning of the creation of the post-war welfare state.
While the system of social security introduced after 1945 is often heralded as one of the greatest achievements of the Labour Party, its intellectual origins and design were primarily owed to Liberal thinkers and politicians stretching back over several decades.
Join us to discuss these issues with Professor Pat Thane (Birkbeck College) and Dr Peter Sloman (University of Cambridge). Chair: Baroness Tyler.
This fringe meeting will be held online as part of the the Liberal Democrat autumn conference, and will be open only to those who have registered for the conference.
General Election 2019: Disappointment for the Liberal Democrats
July 8, 2020 / 06:30 PM
The Liberal Democrats entered the 2019 general election campaign buoyed by their best opinion poll ratings in a decade, a second place showing in the recent European Parliament elections, impressive local election results in England and high-profile defections from the other parties. The party had a dynamic, young new leader in Jo Swinson and a simple, clear message: stop Brexit. But the party’s campaign gained little traction and the results were hugely disappointing.
Discuss the 2019 election with Professor Sir John Curtice (Professor of Politics, University of Strathclyde) and James Gurling (former Chair, Federal Campaigns and Elections Committee). Chair: Wendy Chamberlain MP.
The meeting will be hosted online on Zoom and also broadcast to the History Group’s Facebook page. You must register in advance to participate via Zoom (and be able to ask questions); to register, click here.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. Participation via Zoom is limited to the first 100 registering.
Update following meeting: John Curtice’s presentation to the meeting is attached here: John Curtice 080720
The 1979 General Election
February 3, 2020 / 07:00 PM
David Lloyd George Room, National Liberal Club
1 Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE
The 1979 general election inaugurated the premiership of Margaret Thatcher and an eighteen-year period of Conservative government. It took place after the ‘winter of discontent’, marked by public sector strikes which destroyed the Labour government’s social contract. The results signalled the end of the post-World War II political consensus, based on an enhanced role for the state in economic management, strong trade unions, a broad welfare state and the pursuit of full employment. The election came at the end of a decade that had seen numerous political upheavals, including two hung parliaments and record levels of support for the Liberal Party. But the Liberals’ share of the vote fell sharply in 1979, and two-party politics seemed to be back. Join Lord David Steel, Professor Sir John Curtice (University of Strathclyde) and Baroness Shirley Williams to discuss the 1979 general election and its significance. The meeting will start at 7.00pm, after the Liberal Democrat History Group’s AGM at 6.30pm.The Liberal Party, Health Policy and the Origins of the NHS
September 15, 2019 / 07:45 PM
Purbeck Suite, Marriott Highcliff Hotel
105 St Michael’s Rd, Bournemouth BH2 5DU
The familiar story of the NHS has it that the health service is a Labour achievement, dating from the Attlee administration of 1945–51. But in reality the Liberal governments of the early twentieth century helped to lay the foundations of the NHS, and the welfare state as a whole.
Join Dr Chris Renwick (University of York) and Lord Kenneth O. Morgan to discuss the Liberal contribution to health policy and the origins of the NHS. Chair: Baroness Judith Jolly.
A fringe meeting at the Liberal Democrats’ autumn conference (no conference pass necessary).
The Peterloo Massacre and Nineteenth-Century Popular Radicalism
July 16, 2019 / 06:30 PM
Committee Room 4A, House of Lords
London SW1A 0PW
On 16 August 1819, 60,000 peaceful protesters gathered on St Peter’s Fields in Manchester to demand the right to elect their own MPs. The demonstration ended when local militia on horseback charged the protesters and cut them down with sabres, leaving at least eleven dead and hundreds injured. The episode became known as ‘The Peterloo Massacre’. Lord Liverpool’s ministry then cracked down on protests and dissent through the ‘Six Acts’, which stifled calls for reform.
Join Dr Robert Poole (University of Central Lancashire) and Dr Jacqueline Riding (Birkbeck, University of London) to discuss the importance and legacy of the Peterloo Massacre, particularly for the Whigs and their aspirations for parliamentary reform.
Liberalism in the north
March 15, 2019 / 08:15 PM
Meeting room 1/2, Novotel Hotel
Fishergate, York YO10 4FD
Despite its decline after the First World War, the Liberal Party managed to hang on in Yorkshire and Lancashire, contributing to its eventual revival. Discuss why this was with William Wallace, Tony Greaves and Michael Meadowcroft. Chair: Baroness Kath Pinnock.
A fringe meeting at the Liberal Democrat spring conference (no conference pass necessary).
Gladstone’s first government 1868–74
January 28, 2019 / 07:00 PM
National Liberal Club
1 Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE
One hundred and fifty years ago, in December 1868, William Ewart Gladstone became Prime Minister for the first time. Over the following six years, from 1868 to 1874, his government produced a series of lasting reforms, including nationwide primary school education, the secret ballot, legalisation of some trade union activities and the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland. This record helped build his reputation as the greatest Liberal leader in history. In this meeting Professor Jon Parry and Dr David Brooks discuss the importance and legacy of what might be considered the first Liberal government and the first modern administration. The meeting accompanies the publication of issue 101 of the Journal of Liberal History, a special issue on the same topic. Chair: Baroness Liz Barker. Jon Parry is Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, specialising in the history of British politics and political ideas in the nineteenth century. His publications include Democracy and Religion: Gladstone and the Liberal Party, 1867–1875 and The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain. Dr Brooks is Emeritus Lecturer in History at Queen Mary University London. He has written extensively on Gladstone and organises the annual ‘Gladstone Umbrella’ weekend conference at Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden.Europe: the Liberal commitment
September 16, 2018 / 06:15 PM
Sandringham Suite, Hilton Brighton Metropole
King’s Road, Brighton, BN1
Why have the Liberal Democrats, and their Liberal and SDP predecessors, always supported the European project and membership of the EU?
The historical origins of the Liberal commitment to Europe stretch back to the nineteenth century. The next Liberal Democrat History Group meeting will feature a discussion on the issues with Anthony Howe (Professor of Modern History, University of East Anglia; author of Free Trade and Liberal England, 1846-1946 and editor of the collected letters of the leading British radical Richard Cobden) and Eugenio Biagini (Professor of Modern and Contemporary History, University of Cambridge; author of works on Gladstonian liberalism, the Italian Risorgimento, and Ireland). Chair: Baroness Julie Smith (Director of the European Centre and Senior Lecturer in International Relations, University of Cambridge).
A fringe meeting at the Liberal Democrat conference in September (no conference pass necessary).
The 1918 coupon election and its consequences
July 2, 2018 / 06:30 PM
Committee Room 4A
House of Lords, London, SW1A 0PW
In November 1918, just 24 hours after the Armistice had been signed with Germany, the Liberal Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, announced his decision to hold a general election. Selected coalition candidates received a signed letter of endorsement from Lloyd George and the Conservative leader Andrew Bonar Law. The 1918 election thus became known as the ‘coupon election’. The election saw 133 Coalition Liberals returned to the House of Commons, but the independent Liberals, whom Lloyd George had abandoned, were reduced to a tiny minority, overtaken by the new Labour Party, while the Coalition Liberals increasingly became the prisoner of their Conservative Coalition partners. The election was a key stage in the decline of the Liberal Party; it cemented the wartime split and ensured that the Liberals were eventually relegated to third-party status. Speakers: Kenneth O. Morgan, Lord Morgan (author of Consensus and Disunity: The Lloyd George Coalition Government 1918-22 and several other books on Lloyd George) and Alistair Cooke, Lord Lexden (official historian to the Conservative Party and the Carlton Club). Chair: Claire Tyler (Baroness Tyler). The report of this meeting was published in Journal of Liberal History 100 (autumn 2018) and is also available here.The Liberal Party and Women’s Suffrage
March 9, 2018 / 08:15 PM
Executive Boardroom, Ramada Hotel, Southport
2018 marks 100 years since the Representation of the People Act 1918 was passed under Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George, beginning the enfranchisement of women. While the vast majority of Liberal MPs supported the change, this support was not unanimous, however: the party had been divided for many years over the issue, and the previous Asquith government had obstructed reform. Opponents argued both that politics was not the ‘proper sphere of women’ and that if enfranchised, women would be more likely to vote Conservative. This fringe meeting at the Southport Liberal Democrat conference will discuss the divisions within the Liberal Party over votes for women, the stance taken by the Asquith government and the impacts on the party of the debates over women’s suffrage. Speakers: Jo Swinson (Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats and MP for East Dunbartonshire) and Krista Cowman (Professor of History, University of Lincoln). Chair: Elizabeth Jewkes (Deputy Chair, Liberal Democrat Women).
Election 2017 – a missed opportunity?
February 5, 2018 / 06:30 PM
Lady Violet Room, National Liberal Club
1 Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE
The Liberal Democrats entered the 2017 general election campaign with high hopes: they were the only major UK-wide party unequivocally to oppose Brexit, and the campaign followed months of encouraging local government by-election results. But the outcome was a disappointment: a further fall in the vote from the catastrophic result in 2015, and four losses out of the eight seats that had been salvaged then – though this was offset by the recapture of eight seats which had been lost in 2015 or 2010. What went wrong? Was it a failure of leadership, of positioning or of campaigning? Or was the party simply swept aside by the rising Labour tide? Discuss the result and the implications for the Liberal Democrats with Professor Phil Cowley (co-author of The British General Election of 2017) and James Gurling (Chair, Liberal Democrats Federal Campaigns and Elections Committee). Chair: Baroness Grender (Paddy Ashdown’s second-in-command on the 2015 Liberal Democrat election campaign). The AGM of the Liberal Democrat History Group will take place first, at 6.30pm, followed by the speaker meeting at 7.00pm.Liberals in local government 1967 – 2017
September 17, 2017 / 07:45 PM
Bayview 2, Bournemouth International Centre
The Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors (ALDC) was founded, as the Association of Liberal Councillors, fifty years ago. At this meeting, organised in conjunction with ALDC, we celebrate its 50th anniversary and discuss the role of Liberals and Liberal Democrats in local government. What has the party achieved in local government? To what extent has it taken a distinctively liberal approach?
Speakers: Cllr Sara Bedford (Leader, Three Rivers District Council), Cllr Ruth Dombey (Leader, Sutton Council), Lord Tony Greaves (long-serving councillor, Pendle Borough Council), Cllr Richard Kemp (Leader, Liberal Democrats on Liverpool City Council), Baroness Kath Pinnock (Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, former Leader of Kirklees Council) and Matt Cole (University of Birmingham). Chair: Lord Andrew Stunell (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Communities and Local Government, 2010–12).
This meeting is a fringe meeting at the Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth; a conference pass will be required for access.
The Leadership of Charles Kennedy
July 3, 2017 / 06:30 PM
Lady Violet Room, National Liberal Club
1 Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE
Under Charles Kennedy’s leadership, from 1999 to 2006, the Liberal Democrats won a record number of seats in the Commons – but in January 2006 he was forced to resign by the party’s MPs. When he died, in August 2015, he was mourned deeply by the party he once led. This meeting will assess Kennedy’s achievements as Liberal Democrat leader and his strengths and weaknesses.
Speakers: Greg Hurst (author, Charles Kennedy: A Tragic Flaw) and Lord Dick Newby (fomer Chief of Sta to Charles Kennedy). Chair: Baroness Lindsay Northover.
Who Rules? Parliament, the People or the Prime Minister?
March 17, 2017 / 08:15 PM
Meeting Room 4, Novotel Hotel
Fishergate, York YO10 4FD
Parliamentary supremacy, hard won in the seventeenth century, is being challenged by the government response to Brexit, placing under question whether Parliament or the executive – or the popular will, expressed through a referendum – should have the ultimate say.
Discuss the Liberal approach to who rules with English Civil Wars historian Professor Michael Braddick and Baroness Joan Walmsley. Chair: Baroness Lynne Featherstone.
8.15pm, Friday 17 March 2017
Meeting Room 4, Novotel Hotel, Fishergate, York YO10 4FD (no conference pass necessary)
‘Jeremy is Innocent’ : The Life and Times of Jeremy Thorpe and Marion Thorpe
February 6, 2017 / 07:00 PM
Lady Violet Room, National Liberal Club
1 Whitehall Place, London SW1
Jeremy Thorpe led the Liberal Party over three general elections from 1967 to 1976. Immensely charismatic, under his leadership the Liberal vote at general elections more than doubled. Yet following a scandal, his career ended in a criminal court case. Why? On the fiftieth anniversary of Thorpe’s rise to the party leadership, Ronald Porter (obituarist for The Independent and a regular speaker at National Liberal Club events) will present an illustrated talk covering the life of Jeremy Thorpe and his second wife, Marion, who was married to Jeremy from 1973 until her death in 2014. Chair: Michael Steed. The event will start at 7.00pm after the Annual General Meeting of the Liberal Democrat History Group at 6.30pm.Coalition: Could Liberal Democrats have handled it better?
September 18, 2016 / 07:45 PM
Lancaster Room, Hilton Brighton Metropole
The 2015 election decisively ended the Liberal Democrats’ participation in government. Did what the party achieved in coalition between 2010 and 2015 justify the damage? Could the party have managed coalition better? The meeting marks the publication of the autumn Journal of Liberal History, a special issue on the policy record of the coalition. Speakers: David Laws (Minister for Schools, 2012-15), Chris Huhne (Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, 2010-12), Akash Paun (Institute for Government). Chair: Jo Swinson (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment Relations, Consumer and Poster Affairs, 2012-15).
The legacy of Roy Jenkins
June 27, 2016 / 07:00 PM
Committee Room 4A
House of Lords, Westminster (please allow 20 minutes to get through security)
NOTE: START TIME CHANGED TO 7.00pm Roy Jenkins is best remembered in Liberal Democrat circles as one of the ‘Gang of Four’ who established the Social Democratic Party, the SDP’s first leader, and then a staunch supporter of merger with the Liberal Party. But even as a Labour politician he had a liberal record. In his first two years as Home Secretary (which started just over fifty years ago), he abolished theatre censorship, passed the first effective legislation to outlaw racial discrimination and delivered government support for private members’ bills on the legalisation of homosexuality and on abortion. In 1972 he led the major Labour rebellion that saved the Conservative government’s legislation to take Britain into the European Community. John Campbell (author of Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life) and Lord David Steel (Leader of the Liberal Party 1976-88) discuss how much liberalism in Britain owes to Roy Jenkins. Chair: Dick Newby (Liberal Democrat Chief Whip, House of Lords, and the SDP’s National Secretary 1983-88). Please print this web page and bring it with you; you may be asked to show it at the security check.The ideas that built the Liberal Democrats
March 11, 2016 / 08:15 PM
Novotel Hotel (Meeting Room 4)
Fishergate, York YO10 4FD
What do Liberal Democrats believe? And what stems from our historical legacy? Against the background of the ‘Agenda 2020’ review of values and beliefs, discuss the party’s ideological inheritance with David Boyle, Teena Lashmore and Nick Thornsby at the History Group’s fringe meeting at the York Liberal Democrat conference. Chair: David Howarth.Europe: The Liberal commitment
February 1, 2016 / 07:00 PM
National Liberal Club
1 Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE
How and why did the Liberal Party, SDP and Liberal Democrats all end up as the strongest supporters of Britain’s membership of the European Economic Community and its successor institutions? Has it helped or hindered the party’s political achievements? Have developments in Europe since the EEC’s founding Treaty of Rome in 1958 reflected the party’s European faith? In this year of a possible referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, discuss the historic Liberal commitment and record with Sir Graham Watson (Liberal Democrat MEP 1994–2014) and Lord William Wallace (Liberal Democrat Foreign Office minister in the coalition government, 2010–15). Chair: Baroness Julie Smith.Liberal leaders and leadership
September 20, 2015 / 01:00 PM
Deauville Suite, Trouville Hotel
5-7 Priory Road, Bournemouth, BH2 5DH
Party leaders matter: they embody a party’s present, while also shaping its future. This is particularly important in the values-based Liberal tradition. A total of twenty-five individuals led the Liberal Party, SDP and Liberal Democrats between Earl Grey’s assumption of the leadership of the Whig opposition in 1828 and Nick Clegg’s resignation in 2015. What did it take to be a Liberal leader across these two centuries of tumultuous change? Who was a good leader and who was a bad one? Join us to launch our new book, British Liberal Leaders, and discuss the challenges of leading the Liberals, with Sir Simon Hughes (MP for Bermondsey, 1982–2015) and Lord Paul Tyler (MP for North Cornwall, 1974, 1992–2005). Chair: Lynne Featherstone (MP for Hornsey & Wood Green, 2005–15).Catastrophe: The 2015 Election Campaign and its Outcome
July 13, 2015 / 06:45 PM
NOTE VENUE CHANGE: HOUSE OF LORDS COMMITTEE ROOM 1
NOTE VENUE AND START TIME CHANGE
The venue of this meeting has changed from the National Liberal Club to the House of Lords (Committee Room 1), and the start time from 6.30pm to 6.45pm.
There are several votes in the Lords on Monday, and our chair and one of our speakers are both Liberal Democrat peers who need to be in Parliament at the time. Entry is via Parliament’s public entrance, opposite Westminster Abbey – tell the police officers you are going to a meeting hosted by Baroness Grender in Committee Room 1, and they will direct you. You should allow at least 20 minutes to go through the security check.
Please also note that the room is smaller than our original venue, and we cannot guarantee to be able to seat everyone; we suggest you turn up early. Our apologies for any inconvenience.
The 2015 election is the most catastrophic in the history of the Liberal Democrats and its predecessor parties; in no other previous election has the party lost such a high proportion of its votes and seats.
Entry into coalition with the Conservative Party in 2010 meant that the party always knew it would lose a good number of those who had voted for it in 2010, but Liberal Democrats hoped that they could replace at least some of them with new supporters who had not previously believed the party had a realistic chance of power. The party also assumed that the incumbency factor would save many of their MPs even though the national vote was falling. Neither of these things happened, despite a campaign that was generally recognised as well organised and well funded. Discuss why everything went wrong with Phil Cowley (Professor of Parliamentary Government, University of Nottingham and co-author of The British General Election of 2010) and Baroness Olly Grender, Paddy Ashdown’s second-in-command on the ‘Wheelhouse Group’ which ran the Liberal Democrat election campaign.All welcome, whether or not you are a member of the Liberal Democrat History Group.
Community politics and the Liberal revival
March 13, 2015 / 08:15 PM
Room 13, Arena & Convention Centre
Kings Dock, Liverpool (conference pass needed for entry)
The famous community politics resolution, adopted by the Liberal Party at its 1970 Assembly, helped to lay the foundations for revival after the party’s loss of half its seats in the 1970 election.
Discuss the community politics approach, what it meant and how it can help the Liberal Democrats in the future, with Gordon Lishman (co-author, ‘The Theory and Practice of Community Politics’) and Mike Storey (former leader of Liverpool council); Chair; Sarah Boad (ALDC Treasurer).
The Liberal-Tory Coalition of 1915
January 26, 2015 / 07:00 PM
David lloyd George Room, National Liberal Club
1 Whitehall Place, SW1A 2HE
As we enter the final months of the present Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government it is an appropriate time to look back to a previous partnership between the two parties in the 100th anniversary of its formation. In May 1915, following political and military setbacks, Liberal prime minister H H Asquith brought senior figures from the opposition parties into his government. The meeting will be held jointly with the Conservative History Group and will look in detail at the background to the formation of the coalition and go on to consider its performance in government before its dramatic fall in December 1916. Speakers: Dr Ian Packer, Acting Head of the School of History and Heritage at Lincoln University, author of a number of books on Edwardian and Liberal politics, who will look at the coalition from the Liberal side and Dr Nigel Keohane who now works at the Social Market Foundation and is the author of the book The Conservative Party and the First World War, to consider the coalition from a Conservative perspective. Chair: The Earl of Oxford and Asquith, (Raymond Asquith) the great-grandson of H H Asquith and currently the newest member of the Liberal Democrat team in the House of Lords.The Liberal Party and the First World War
November 1, 2014 / 09:30 AM
Kings College, London – Room K2.40, Strand Campus
A one-day conference organised by the Journal of Liberal History and Kings College, London. In this year, 100 years since the coming of war in August 1914, the conflict is remembered chiefly for its impact on the millions of ordinary men, women and children who were to suffer and die and over the following four years. Lives were altered forever and society transformed. But the war had political consequences too: empires fell, new nations emerged and British political parties and the party system underwent profound change, a transformation which plunged the Liberal Party into civil war and caused it to plummet from a natural party of government to electoral insignificance within a few short years. This conference will examine some of the key issues and personalities of the period. Agenda: 09.30 Registration 09.50 Introduction: Lord Wallace of Saltaire, President of the Liberal Democrat History Group 10.00 The Liberal Party and the First World War an overview: Professor Pat Thane, Kings College 10.30 Sir Edward Grey and the road to war: Professor Thomas Otte, University of East Anglia 11.15 Coffee break 11.45 Gilbert Murray v. E.D. Morel: Liberalism’s debilitating Great War divide: Professor Martin Ceadel, New College, Oxford 12.30 Lunch break 13.15 The papers of Asquith and Harcourt: Mike Webb, Bodleian Library 14.00 Asquith as War Premier and Liberal Leader: Dr Roland Quinault, Institute of Historical Research 14.45 Coffee break 15.15 Comparing Lloyd George and Winston Churchill as war leaders: Professor Richard Toye, University of Exeter 16.00 Panel discussion on the impact of the war on the Liberal Party: Michael Steed, Professor Vernon Bogdanor, Roland Quinault, Pat Thane 17.00 Close of conference
Great Liberal thinkers: lessons for the future
October 5, 2014 / 07:45 PM
Picasso 2, Campanile – Liberal Democrat Glasgow Conference
To mark the launch of our publication, ‘Liberal Thinkers’, Baroness Liz Barker and MPs Alan Beith, David Laws and John Pugh draw lessons from past Liberal thinkers for the future direction of the Liberal Democrats.
Liberalism, Peace and the First World War
June 30, 2014 / 07:00 PM
David Lloyd George Room, National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place, SW1
The First World War sent a shockwave through the Liberal Party, permanently affecting its politics, its people and the way it viewed the world and its own place in it. This meeting, jointly organised by the Liberal Democrat History Group and Liberal International British Group and held a hundred years, almost to the day, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo will explore key aspects of this crisis of Liberal internationalism. Speakers: Robert Falkner (Associate Professor of International Relations, LSE) on the Great War and its impact on liberal internationalism, and Louise Arimatsu (Associate Fellow, International Law Programme, Chatham House) on war, law and the liberal project. Chair: Martin Horwood MP (Co-Chair, Liberal Democrat parliamentary policy committee on international affairs).
Social reformers and liberals: the Rowntrees and their legacy
March 7, 2014 / 08:15 PM
Riverside Room
Novotel Hotel, Fishergate, York YO10 4FD
Joseph and Seebohm Rowntree were successful businessmen, pioneers of social investigation and committed Liberals. Discuss their careers and political legacy at the History Group’s meeting at the Liberal Democrat spring conference, with Ian Packer (Lincoln University), Tina Walker and Lord Shutt (Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust). Chair: Lord Kirkwood.Decline and Fall: the Liberal Party and the general elections of 1922, 1923 and 1924
February 10, 2014 / 07:00 PM
Lady Violet Room, National Liberal Club, Whitehall Place, SW1
For the Liberal Party, the three general elections of 1922,1923 and 1924 represented a terrible journey from postwar disunity to reunion, and near return to government to dramatic and prolonged decline. Arguably, this was the key period which relegated the Liberals to the third-party status from which they have still never escaped. The Liberal Democrat History Group winter meeting on 10 February 2014 will look in detail at these elections and what they meant for the Liberal Party and the changes they brought about in British politics. Speakers: Michael Steed, Honorary Lecturer in Politics at the University of Kent and noted psephologist; Professor Pat Thane, Professor of Contemporary History at King’s College, London. Chair: Dr Julie Smith, Cambridge University. (The event will be preceded by the Liberal Democrat History Group’s AGM at 6:30pm.)
Survival and success: the first 25 years of the Liberal Democrats
September 15, 2013 / 08:00 PM
Picasso 2 room, Campanile Hotel, 10 Tunnel Street, Glasgow G3 8HL
This year, 2013, marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Liberal Democrats. From near-annihilation to entry into government, the years since 1988 have been a roller-coaster ride for the party. Discuss which factors were important in the survival and success of the Liberal Democrats, and speculate about the future, with: Duncan Brack (Editor, Journal of Liberal History): on leadership and policy Mark Pack (Liberal Democrats online campaign manager, 2001 and 2005): on campaigns John Curtice (Professor Politics, Strathclyde University): who votes for the Liberal Democrats? Cllr Julie Smith (Vice Chair, Lib Dem Policy Committee): on the impact of coalition Chair: Paddy Ashdown (Chair, 2015 general election campaign) A Liberal Democrat History Group fringe meeting (note this is outside the conference secure area no passes necessary)
Jo Grimond – the legacy
June 10, 2013 / 07:00 PM
Lady Violet Room, National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place, SW1A 2HE
Jo Grimond, leader of the Liberal Party from 1956 to 1967, holds a particularly affectionate place in the collective memory of the Liberal Democrats. His charisma, charm, good looks, political courage, intellect and inherent liberalism inspired many to join the Liberal Party in the late 1950s and 1960s and gained him a national reputation as someone who could give politics a good name which has endured to the present day. One hundred years after his birth in 1913, our next meeting will examine in more detail the legacy of Jo Grimond, not simply for the modern Liberal Democrats but, more widely, for British politics and political ideas. Speakers: Dr Peter Sloman (New College, Oxford) on Grimond’s ideas, with a focus on his thinking around the role of the state and free market; Harry Cowie (former Liberal Party Director of Research and speechwriter to Grimond) on the development of policy under Grimond’s leadership; Michael Meadowcroft (Liberal MP for Leeds West 198387) on Grimond’s leadership of the Liberal Party, 1956 67, and its legacy. Chair: William Wallace, Lord Wallace of Saltaire (press assistant to Jo Grimond during the 1966 general election).
David Lloyd George: the legacy
March 8, 2013 / 08:15 PM
Buckingham Room, Hilton Brighton Metropole, Brighton
One of the greatest Liberal prime ministers, David Lloyd George, was born 150 years ago. Come and discuss his legacy, for the country and for Liberalism, with his biographer Kenneth O. Morgan and David Howarth. Chair: Lady Celia Thomas. A Liberal Democrat History Group / Lloyd George Society meeting.
The progressive coalition that never was lessons from the Ashdown-Blair ‘project’
January 22, 2013 / 07:00 PM
Attlee Suite, Portcullis House, House of Commons, SW1A 2LW
Between 1994 and 1999, Paddy Ashdown and Tony Blair led a process of collaboration between the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party, with the aim not merely of defeating the Conservatives but of establishing clear common ground between the progressive parties in British politics. Some of the outcomes of this process – ‘the project’, in Ashdown’s phrase – were public, such as the programme of agreed constitutional reforms drawn up by Robin Cook and Robert Maclennan. Far more were secret: covert electoral collaboration in marginal seats during the 1997 election, attempts to agree a programme for government, talks about coalition – and hints of a more permanent alliance. In the end, the size of Labour’s majority in 1997 destroyed the case for coalition, and the main outcome was a Joint Cabinet Committee between the two parties. What it achieved is not clear, and it was abandoned by Ashdown’s successor Charles Kennedy. Now, in a period of cooperation between political parties very different from that envisaged by Ashdown and Blair, what can we learn from ‘the project’? What did it achieve? What could it have achieved under different circumstances? And what can it tell us about the desirability and achievability of collaboration between progressive forces? Speakers: Paddy Ashdown, Rt Hon Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon GCMG KBE Leader of the Liberal Democrats 1988-99 Roger Liddle, Lord Liddle Special Adviser to Bill Rodgers 1976-81; Member of the SDP and then Liberal Democrats 1981-94, member of the Lib Dem Federal Policy Committee; Special Adviser to Tony Blair 1997-2004 Rt Hon Pat McFadden MP Adviser to Donald Dewar 1988-93, to John Smith 1993-94 and to Tony Blair 1994-2005 Chair: Steve Richards, Chief Political Commentator, The Independent Jointly organised by the Liberal Democrat History Group and the Labour History Group
The Liberal Party, Unionism and political culture in late 19th and early 20th century Britain
November 10, 2012 / 10:14 PM
Newman UC, Birmingham
A one-day seminar organised by Newman University College and the Journal of Liberal History. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw great changes in British political culture. The gradual emergence of a mass electorate informed by a popular press, debates about the role of the state in social policy, Imperial upheavals and wars all had their impact on political culture. Political parties got more professional, labour more organised, regional identities sharpened. To accompany this turmoil a new political party, the Liberal Unionists, was formed to oppose Gladstones policy of Irish Home Rule policy, splitting the Liberal family and causing a re-appraisal of what it meant to be a Unionist. The seminar will examine some of the key changes in the political culture of this period against the background of the formation of the Liberal Unionists and the new party and political alignments this brought about. Speakers: Professor Robert Colls, University of Leicester – Political culture in Britain 1884-1914 Dr Ian Cawood, Newman UC, Birmingham – The impact of the Liberal Unionists, 1886-1912 Dr Matthew Roberts, Sheffield Hallam University – A terrific outburst of political meteorology: by-elections and the Unionist ascendancy in late Victorian England Dr James Thompson, Bristol University -The Liberal Party, Liberalism and the visual culture of British politics c.1880-1914 Dr Kathryn Rix, History of Parliament Trust – Professionalisation and political culture: the party agents, 1880-1914 Dr James Owen, History of Parliament Trust – Labour and the caucus: working class radicalism and organised Liberalism in England The cost of the seminar will be £20 (students and unwaged £10) to include morning refreshments and buffet lunch. Other refreshments will be available to purchase from the coffee bar after the conference closes. To register please contact Tracy Priest, History Department at Newman University College, Birmingham B32 3NT, 0121 476 1181, t.priest@staff.newman.ac.uk
The Day Parliament Burned Down
October 30, 2012 / 06:30 PM
Committee Room 2, House of Lords (allow 20 minutes to pass through security)
In the early evening of 16 October 1834, a huge ball of fire exploded through the roof of the Houses of Parliament, creating a blaze so enormous that it could be seen by the King and Queen at Windsor, and from stagecoaches on top of the South Downs. In front of hundreds of thousands of witnesses the great conflagration destroyed Parliament’s glorious old buildings and their contents. No one who witnessed the disaster would ever forget it. In a joint meeting between the Liberal Democrat and Conservative History Groups, Dr Caroline Shenton, Clerk of the Records from the Parliamentary Archives, will give a talk on her new book about the 1834 fire, ‘The Day Parliament Burned Down’. (Note: this meeting is advertised in the latest Journal as taking place on Tuesday 20th October. Our apologies for the error.)
Mothers of liberty: how modern liberalism was made by women
September 23, 2012 / 08:00 PM
106 Bar, Hilton Brighton Metropole Hotel, Kings Road East Sussex Brighton BN1 2FU
Thanks to their exclusion from the right to vote and to stand for Parliament before 1918, the role of women in Liberal history is often overlooked. Yet many women played crucial roles, from the earliest days of Liberal history, as organisers, campaigners and theorists. This meeting analysed and celebrated the importance of women to the growth and success of Liberal thought and politics. The meeting also marked the launch of a new History Group booklet, a series of biographies of famous women liberals, which details the contribution of women to Liberal politics from the eighteenth century to the present day. The speakers were: Dr Helen McCabe, Oxford University, on women associated with the development of Liberal political thought in the 18th and 19th centuries, including Mary Wollstonecraft, Harriet Martineau, Harriet Taylor Mill and Barbara Bodichon. Baroness Jane Bonham-Carter, on the story of one of the most significant Liberal women of the 20th century, Violet Bonham Carter. Jo Swinson MP (PPS to the Deputy Prime Minister) on the role of women in the modern Liberal Democrats. Chair: Lynne Featherstone MP, Minister for Equalities, Home Office. You can ||http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzu8g0coIG0||watch the meeting online here||.
Ownership for All the Liberal Party, co-ownership and industrial relations
July 9, 2012 / 07:00 PM
Lady Violet Room, National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place, SW1A 2HE
In 1928 the Liberal Party published the Yellow Book, the report Britains Industrial Future. While the report made a compelling case for state intervention in the economy and planning and advocated great programmes of public works, it also contained detailed proposals for profit-sharing and co-ownership. Unlike socialists, Liberals did not seek the abolition of private ownership. Unlike Conservatives, Liberals were not ideologically hostile to public control of natural monopolies or the great national industries. Liberals favoured diffused popular ownership in industry, everyone having some stake in their industrial future and looked to profit sharing, collaboration and co-ownership as a means to that end. This years Liberal Democrat History Group summer meeting will revisit the Liberal Partys commitment to co-ownership with Dr Tudor Jones, author of the recently published, The Revival of British Liberalism (Palgrave Macmillan) and Andrew Gamble, Professor and Head of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge and author of the chapter on Liberals and the Economy in Vernon Bogdanor’s book Liberal Party Politics. Chair: Chris Nicholson, Special Adviser to Ed Davey MP.
Winston Churchill: Tory or Liberal?
March 9, 2012 / 08:00 PM
Room MEC6, Sage Centre, Gateshead
“I am an English Liberal. I hate the Tory Party, their men, their words and their methods.” These were Winston Churchill’s own words in 1903. As a Liberal, Churchill held high government office and, along with Lloyd George, was regarded as one of the driving forces of Asquith’s reforming administration. Was Liberalism his true political ideology? Or should we judge his position from his re-ratting in 1924 and his long association and later leadership of the Conservatives? Churchill’s party politics came under the spotlight at the History Group fringe meeting at the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference. Delivering their verdicts were Professor Martin Pugh, formerly of Newcastle and Liverpool John Moores Universities and Sir Alan Beith, Liberal and Liberal Democrat MP for Berwick-on-Tweed since 1973. You can ||http://bit.ly/ChurchillFringe||watch the meeting online here||.
Whatever happened to ‘Orpington Man’?
January 23, 2012 / 07:00 PM
Lady Violet Room, National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place, SW1A 2HE
The Orpington by-election of March 1962 was a political landmark: a stunning victory for Jo Grimond’s Liberal Party, as Eric Lubbock turned a Conservative majority of 14,760 into a Liberal majority of 7,855. The term ‘Orpington Man’ was coined by the press to identify a new type of voter, young, white-collar, skilled, well-educated and upwardly mobile socially and economically a social group supposedly rejecting an old-fashioned and out-of-touch Tory party but not attracted to a cloth-cap, Clause IV Labour Party either. The expectation was that this group would decide the next general election and would vote decisively for the Liberal Party. But this never happened. The Liberals did relatively well at the 1964 election, gaining almost 5 per cent of the vote and three more seats – but not in the areas where ‘Orpington Man’ was supposed to live. So what happened to ‘Orpington Man’? Dennis Kavanagh, Emeritus Professor and Research Fellow in Politics and Communications at Liverpool University and author of many works on British electoral history, and Dr Mark Egan, who recently published the book Coming into Focus: The Transformation of the Liberal Party, 1945-64, will explore the phenomenon of ‘Orpington Man’ from the by-election to the 1964 general election.
Peace, Reform and Liberation: launch of new Liberal history book
September 19, 2011 / 08:00 PM
Suite 107/109/111, Jurys Inn, Birmingham
Peace, Reform and Liberation is a comprehensive history of Liberal politics in Britain. Drawing on the most recent scholarly research, the Liberal Democrat History Groups new book examines the roots of Liberal thinking in the revolutionary tumult of the seventeenth century, the history of Whig politics, how the Liberal Party was formed in the mid-nineteenth century, the reasons for the partys calamitous decline after the First World War, and the factors underlying the partys unexpected revival in the second half of the twentieth century, culminating in the formation of the Liberal Democrats and the partys entry into government in 2010. Edited by Robert Ingham and Duncan Brack; chapter authors include Michael Freeden, Eugenio Biagini, Martin Pugh, David Dutton and Philip Cowley. Join Paddy Ashdown, Shirley Williams and Julian Glover (The Guardian) for the launch of Peace, Reform and Liberation at the Liberal Democrat conference. Copies will be on sale at the meeting! UPDATE: You can watch a recording of the meeting ||http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FePUZKecH6I||on YouTube||.
Forgotten heroes for a governing party
June 20, 2011 / 06:30 PM
David Lloyd George Room, National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place, London, SW1A 2HE
Some forgotten figures of Liberal history may deserve their obscurity, but most remain an unmined source of reference, quotation and inspiration for the contemporary Liberal Democrat – especially now, when the party is participating in national government for the first time in more than a generation. At this year’s Liberal Democrat History Group summer meeting, two senior party figures and two well-known academics will rescue their own forgotten heroes from the twilight of history and tell us how their champions’ public lives can influence today’s Liberal Democrats. Speakers: Lady Floella Benjamin; Lord Navnit Dholakia; Dr Matt Cole; Dr Mark Pack. The meeting will also mark the launch of Matt Cole’s new biography, Richard Wainwright, the Liberals and Liberal Democrats; copies will be available for sale.
Riding the tiger – the Liberal experience of coalition governments
March 26, 2011 / 09:15 AM
Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, Lincolns Inn Fields, London, WC2 2AE
A one day seminar organised by the Archives Division of the London School of Economics, the British Liberal Political Studies Group and the Journal of Liberal History. The distinguished psephologist Dr David Butler has pointed out that coalitions between unequal partners can turn out to be like the relationship between the tiger and the young lady of Riga. But they can also last and achieve success, despite Disraelis classic pronouncement that England does not love them. The formation of the present government offers a tempting opportunity to re-examine the Liberal experience of coalitions in 19th and 20th century British history. Speakers who have agreed to give papers at this event: Professor Kenneth O Morgan Liberals in Coalition, 1916-1922 Sue Donnelly and Nick White, Archives Division, LSE Relevant papers in the Liberal Party archives at the British Library of Political & Economic Science Dr Angus Hawkins, Oxford University – Whigs, Peelites and Liberals: Coalition politics before 1886 Dr Ian Cawood, Newman University College, Birmingham – The Liberal Unionists, 1886-1912 Dr Ian Packer, Lincoln University – The formation and fall of the wartime Coalition of H H Asquith, 1915-1916 Professor David Dutton, Liverpool University – The Liberal Party and the National Government, 1931-1940 Dr Alun Wyburn-Powell, Leicester University – Winston Churchill and Coalitions Professor Vernon Bogdanor, Emeritus Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford England does not love Coalitions (Disraeli): a summary of the Liberal experience of coalition politics (Exact titles of contributions may alter slightly) The cost of the seminar will be £15 to include refreshments at mid-morning and mid-afternoon. Lunch is not provided but there are plenty of good value eateries near the venue. To register please contact: Archives Division, Library, London School of Economics, 10 Portugal Street, London, WC2A 2HD, 020 7955 7221 or by email: Document@lse.ac.uk Please arrive between 0915 and 0945 on the day. Please be aware that the TUC are holding a demonstration in Westminster on this day and there will be disruption to travel across and into central London. Temple station is likely to be closed. Please allow plenty of time to get to the LSE and book train tickets as far in advance as you can if travelling into to London stations.
Lords Reform 1911-2011
March 11, 2011 / 08:00 PM
Suite 3, Jurys Inn Hotel, 119 Eyre Street, Sheffield, S1 4QW
The 1911 Parliament Act, introduced in the wake of the rejection by the House of Lords of Lloyd George’s People’s Budget and the two general elections of 1910, was the first successful reform of the powers of the upper house and gave constitutional supremacy to the elected House of Commons. Now, one hundred years after the 1911 Parliament Act, the Liberal Democrat History Group’s fringe meeting will examine the development of Lords reform since and look forward to the Coalitions plans for the most far-reaching changes to the House of Lords since the Liberal governments reforms of 1911 ended the upper houses ability to block legislation. Speakers: Lord Jonathan Marks, Lib Dem member of the House of Lords; Lord Norton, Professor of Government, University of Hull. Chair: Baroness Ros Scott.
The Great Reform Act of 1832: its legacy and influence on the Coalition’s reform agenda
January 24, 2011 / 07:00 PM
Lady Violet Room, National Liberal Club, Whitehall Place, London, SW1A 2HE
Soon after becoming Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg promised “the most significant programmes of reform by a British government since the 19th century…. the biggest shake-up of our democracy since 1832.” But how do the Coalition governments constitutional changes actually compare to the changes brought in by the Great Reform Bill of 1832? Dr Philip Salmon of the History of Parliament Trust will talk about the background to the passing of the Great Reform Bill and the impact of 1832 on British political history. Dr Mark Pack, co-editor of Lib Dem Voice and former Head of Innovations at Cowley Street, will draw comparisons between 1832 and the Coalition reform agenda. Chair: William Wallace (Lord Wallace of Saltaire, government whip in the Lords).
Election 2010 in historical perspective
September 19, 2010 / 08:00 PM
Grace Suite 3, Hilton Hotel, Liverpool
The 2010 election must rank as one of the strangest in the history of the Liberal Democrats or its predecessor parties. Britains first-ever television debates saw the party catapulted into the front rank of news coverage. Yet after successive opinion polls regularly showed the Lib Dems in at least second place, the result was a crashing disappointment; although the party gained almost a million votes, the vagaries of the first-past-the-post electoral system meant that it lost a net five seats. Yet in losing, the party won. The outcome of the election – a hung parliament – at last gave the Liberal Democrats a chance of power, and led to Britains first coalition government for sixty-five years. Discuss the election campaign and its outcome with John Curtice (Professor of Politics, Strathclyde University), Dennis Kavanagh (author, ‘The British General Election of 2010’) and James Gurling (Chair, Liberal Democrat Campaigns & Communications Committee).
Thomas Paine and the radical liberal tradition
July 12, 2010 / 06:30 PM
National Liberal Club (Lloyd George Room), 1 Whitehall Place, London, SW1A 2HE
To coincide with the publication of the special issue of the Journal of Liberal History on Liberalism and the Left (summer 2010), we are delighted to welcome Prof Edward Royle and Dr Edward Vallance to the History Group for an evening focusing on the life, works and influence of Thomas Paine. In the two centuries since Paine’s death, his works and reputation have been both vilified and appropriated by individuals and movements from across the political spectrum. His name has become a touchstone of left-wing and liberal thought, celebrated for the courage of his political vision, even as the specific context of his writings has too often been disregarded. We invite our speakers to consider the continued resonance of Paine’s thought and to assess his relevance for radical and liberal activists today. Speakers: Edward Royle, Emeritus Professor, University of York and author of many works on 18th and 19th century history including Revolutionary Britannia? Reflections on the Threats of Revolution in Britain, 17891848 and Robert Owen and the Commencement of the Millennium: A Study of the Harmony Community; Dr Edward Vallance, University of Roehampton and author of A Radical History of Britain: Visionaries, Rebels and Revolutionaries the Men and Women who fought for our Freedom and The Glorious Revolution: 1688 Britains Fight for Liberty. Chair: Dr Richard Grayson, Head of Politics, Goldsmiths College, guest editor of the Liberalism and the Left special issue of the Journal and co- editor of After the Crash: Reinventing the Left in Britain and Reinventing the State: Social Liberalism for the 21st Century.
Red Guard versus Old Guard? The influence of the Young Liberal movement on the Liberal Party in the 1960s and 1970s a witness seminar
March 12, 2010 / 08:00 PM
Birmingham ICC Conference Room 7b
In the 1960s and early 1970s the press coined the phrase the “Red Guard” to describe the radical politics of the youth wing of the Liberal Party. At the 1966 Party Conference in Brighton, the Red Guard sponsored an anti-NATO resolution. Over the next decade the YLs were active on a number of foreign policy areas. They were at the forefront of the opposition to apartheid and the Vietnam war and took a leading role in the Stop the Seventy Tour of South African cricket and rugby teams. The party leadership were disturbed by the activities of the youth wing, and Jeremy Thorpe set up a three-man commission which produced the Terrell Report. The report accused some of the Young Liberals of being communists. Chair (Lord) Tony Greaves Speaker Dr Matt Cole, Lecturer at the London School of Economics for the Hansard Society and author of Richard Wainwright, the Liberals and Liberal Democrats: Unfinished Business, shortly to be published by Manchester University Press Witnesses who have agreed to attend are Gordon Lishman, William Wallace, Terry Lacey, Michael Steed and George Kiloh, and we welcome other testimony from audience members.
What’s left of Gladstonian Liberalism in the Liberal Democrats?
January 25, 2010 / 07:00 PM
National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place, London, SW1A 2HE
Since the publication of The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism edited by David Laws and Paul Marshall in 2004, there has been an ongoing discussion in the Liberal Democrats about whether the party needs to return to the nineteenth-century Gladstonian inheritance of non-interventionism in economic and social affairs, self-help and an emphasis on personal and political as opposed to social liberalism. Now, in celebration of the bi-centenary of the birth of William Ewart Gladstone in 1809, the History Group is holding a meeting to find out what Gladstonian Liberalism was and how it came to dominate late Victorian politics and to discover just how much of the classical liberal inheritance the Grand Old Man has actually passed down to the current-day Liberal Democrats. Speakers: Dr Eugenio Biagini, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and author of many works on 19th century history and ideas including Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform. Popular liberalism in the age of Gladstone, 1860-1880; Chris Huhne MP (Lib Dem Shadow Home Secretary) Meeting follows the History Group AGM which is at 6.30pm.
A celebration and exploration of aspects of the life, career and thought of John Stuart Mill
November 14, 2009 / 09:30 AM
Room 1.04, New Academic Building, Lincolns Inn Fields
In 1859, the philosopher and leading liberal theorist of Victorian Britain, John Stuart Mill, published his most important and enduring work On Liberty. In this essay Mill set out the principle, still acknowledged as universal and valid today, that only the threat of harm to others could justify interfering with anyones liberty of action. The Liberal Democrat History Group, the London School of Economics and the British Liberal Political Studies Group are holding a one-day symposium to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of On Liberty and to publicise the archive of papers left by Mill and his wife Harriet Taylor who, according to Mill, was as much responsible for On Liberty as he was himself. The event will be held from 9.30am 5pm at the London School of Economics. Speakers who have agreed to give papers include: David Howarth, Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge: The importance of J S Mill and On Liberty to British thought and politics today Dr Eugenio Biagini, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge: J S Mill and the Victorian Liberal Party Dr Annabelle Lever, Institute of Science Ethics & Innovation, Manchester Law School: Mill and the Secret Ballot Dr Georgios Varouxakis, Queen Mary, University of London: Mills Vision of International Relations Sue Donnelly, Archivist at the LSE Library: The Mill-Taylor Archives at the LSE (with optional visit to see papers in the archive over the lunch break) Dr Michael Levin, Emeritus Reader in Politics, Goldsmiths College, University of London: Mill and the Threat to Civilization Dr Alan Butt Philip, University of Bath and J S Mill Institute: Mill as a politician The cost of the conference will be £10 to include refreshments at mid-morning and mid-afternoon. To register please contact: Archives Division, Library London School of Economics, 10 Portugal Street, London, WC2A 2HD, 020 7955 7221, Document@lse.ac.uk
A delicate balance
September 20, 2009 / 06:15 PM
Franklyn Suite, Connaught Hotel, West Hill Road, West Cliff, Bournemouth, Dorset, BH2 5PH
The long-term decline in popularity of Labour and the Conservatives, and the growth in the number of third-party MPs at Westminster including mostly notably those of the Liberal Democrats means that a Parliament with no single-party overall majority is now arithmetically much more likely. Any third party holding the balance of power in Parliament finds itself facing both opportunities and threats. It may be able to influence events to ensure elements of its own programme are implemented, either through coalition government or other, less formal, arrangements. Or it may find itself relegated to impotence, prone to internal divisions and squeezed in the following election. Over the last ninety years the Liberal Party and Liberal Democrats have lived through both types of experience. This meeting is designed to discuss how the party handled the situations it found itself in, and whether, in retrospect, it could have done better (or worse). Speakers: Professor Martin Pugh (hung parliaments in the 1920s); Lord Tom McNally (Lib-Lab Pact, 1970s) and David Laws MP (Scottish Parliament, 1999). Chair: Duncan Brack (Editor, Journal of Liberal History). Supported by The Guardian.
The strange birth of Liberal England
July 20, 2009 / 07:00 PM
National Liberal Club, Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE
One hundred and fifty years ago, on the 6 June 1859, at Willis Rooms in St James, Westminster, Radical, Peelite and Whig Members of Parliament met to formalise their Parliamentary coalition to oust the Conservative government and finally brought about the formation of the Liberal Party. To commemorate the compact made at Willis Rooms in 1859 and the consequent founding of the Liberal Party, the Liberal Democrat History Group and the National Liberal Cub are organising a joint event at the Club on the evening of 20 July 2009. There will be a reception at 7.00pm, followed by dinner at 7.30. The evening will be chaired by Lord Wallace of Saltaire (William Wallace), the President of the Liberal Democrat History Group. After dinner, Ros Scott, President of the Liberal Democrats, and Professor Anthony Howe of the University of East Anglia and author of the books, Free Trade and Liberal England, 1846-1946 and Rethinking Nineteenth-Century Liberalism: Richard Cobden Bicentenary Essays, will give talks. The National Liberal Club has invited the former leaders of the Liberal Party, Liberal Democrats and the pre-merger SDP and other guests to attend the evening. We are hoping that one or more of these distinguished guests may say a few words on the legacy of the Liberal tradition established in 1859 on the Liberal Party and its successor, the Liberal Democrats. Admission to the event will include wine at the reception and dinner at a cost of £40. If you would like to celebrate 150 years of Liberalism with us, please contact: The Club Secretary, National Liberal Club, Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE, 020 7930 9871, fax 020 7839 4768, email secretary@nlc.org.uk. UPDATE: A podcast of Anthony Howe’s speech is available at ||http://www.libdemvoice.org/podcast-professor-anthony-howe-foundation-liberal-party-15937.html||Liberal Democrat Voice||.
Fighting Labour: the struggle for radical supremacy in Scotland 1885-1929
March 13, 2009 / 06:45 PM
Royal George Hotel, Tay Street, Perth
The Liberal Democrat History Group is holding its first meeting in Scotland as part of the fringe at the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ spring conference. The meeting will look back at the Liberal Party’s contribution to radical, progressive politics in Scotland and its struggle with Labour in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, culminating in the years following Asquith’s by-election win in Paisley in 1920. Speakers: Professor Richard Finlay, Head of History Department, Strathclyde University; Dr Catriona MacDonald, Senior Lecturer in History, Glasgow Caledonian University; Lord Wallace of Tankerness (Jim Wallace), former Deputy First Minister of Scotland Chair: Robert Brown MSP
Liberal Democrats in Europe, 21 years of success or failure?
March 6, 2009 / 08:00 PM
Queens Suite 2, Harrogate International Centre, Harrogate
The Liberal Party and the SDP were the most pro-European of the British political parties. So how has their successor party fared in European politics since merger in 1988? How has the party adapted to the wide range of liberal thought represented by our sister parties in ALDE and ELDR? Speakers: Graham Watson MEP (Leader of ALDE) will look at the record of the Lib Dem group in the European Parliament; Florus Wijsenbeek (former Dutch Liberal MP and first secretary-general of ELDR) will examine where the party fits on the European liberal spectrum and whether there have been changes in ideological or political position by the Lib Dems over the past twenty one years. Chair: Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP
‘Taxes that will bring forth fruit’ – The centenary of the People’s Budget of 1909
January 12, 2009 / 07:00 PM
Lady Violet Room, National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place, SW1A 2HE
Following the introduction of Old Age Pensions by the Liberal government of H H Asquith in 1908 and the plans to legislate for limited unemployment and sickness benefit through National Insurance, Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George brought in the means to pay for these measures, as well as for naval rearmament, in his 1909 People’s Budget. It was a truly radical budget as, for the first time, an attempt was made to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor. The budget led to a constitutional stand-off between the government and the House of Lords. Finally, after the two general elections of 1910, the House of Lords agreed to pass the Parliament Act of 1911, confirming the primacy of the elected over the hereditary chamber. The meeting will examine the political context in which the budget was introduced and evaluate its importance to Liberalism 100 years ago and its resonance today. Speakers: Professor Lord Kenneth O. Morgan (historian and biographer of Lloyd George) and Dr Vince Cable MP (Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats and Shadow Chancellor). Chair: William Wallace (Lord Wallace of Saltaire).
Founding the welfare state
September 14, 2008 / 08:00 PM
Bay View 2, Bournemouth International Centre, Exeter Road, Bournemouth, BH2 5BH
A hundred years ago, in 1908, H. H. Asquith’s government introduced the Old Age Pensions Bill. This was just the beginning of a comprehensive Liberal programme of social reform, including national insurance, minimum wages, labour exchanges and compulsory school meals, among much else. Did this programme really represent a decisive break with nineteenth-century notions of a minimal state, or was it simply an attempt to counter the challenge of the emerging Labour movement? Debate the issue in this centenary year of the Pensions Act. Speakers: Dr Ian Packer, Lincoln University; author of ‘Liberal Government and Politics, 1905-15’, and Joe Harris, General Secretary of the National Pensioners Convention. Chair: Lady Jane Bonham Carter, Asquith’s great-granddaughter.
Working with Others: the Lib-Lab Pact, 1977-78
July 14, 2008 / 07:00 PM
National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place, London SW1
From March 1977 to October 1978, the Liberal Party kept Jim Callaghan’s Labour government in power through the Lib-Lab Pact. Labour ministers consulted systematically with Liberal spokespeople across a wide range of policy areas. Arguably, the Pact restored a degree of political and economic stability to the country, but its achievements from a Liberal point of view were highly limited and it did not appear to be popular with the country at large. Yet, in the longer term, the Pact can be seen to have paved the way for the concept of different political parties working together which led in the following decade to the LiberalSDP Alliance and may ultimately lead to coalition government at Westminster. Twenty years on from the Pact, key participants from both sides discuss its history and impact. Speakers: David Steel (Leader of the Liberal Party 1976-88); Tom McNally (Head of the Prime Ministers Political Office 1976-79); Michael Steed (President of the Liberal Party 1978-79, and academic psephologist). Chair: Geoff Tordoff (Chairman of the Liberal Party 1976-79).
Salad days: merger twenty years on
July 3, 2008 / 08:00 PM
Princes 2 Suite, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Liverpool
Twenty years ago a new political party was born from the merger of the Liberal and Social Democratic parties the Social & Liberal Democrats (or Salads, as the party was disparagingly nicknamed by its opponents). This meeting will explore the political background to the merger and the byzantine process of negotiation through which it which it came about. Did it really deserve the description of merger most foul? Speakers: Lord Clement-Jones, member of the Liberal merger negotiating team; Lord Goodhart, member of the SDP merger negotiating team; and Professor David Dutton, Liverpool University.
Torrington ’58: Liberal survival and revival, 1945-79
June 14, 2008 / 03:15 AM
London School of Economics, S75 St Clements Building, Houghton Street, London WC2
On 27 March 1958, Mark Bonham Carter, Asquith’s grandson, won the Parliamentary by-election in the Devon seat of Torrington by a margin of just 219 votes. It was the first Liberal by-election gain since the 1920s. Although the seat was lost in the 1959 general election, it marked the beginning of the first major Liberal post-war revival, under the leadership of Jo Grimond. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Torrington by-election, the Archives of the London School of Economics, the Liberal Democrat History Group and the Richard Scurrah Wainwright Trust are holding a seminar to investigate the post-Second World War experience of the Liberal Party – from the defeats of the 1945 general election to the general election of 1979, when 13 Liberal MPs were elected. The keynote address will be given by Lord Dholakia and Lord Wallace, on ‘Campaigning Liberals in the 1950s and 1960s’. Other sessions during the day will include: Liberal campaigning: elections and by-elections Local government – grassroots survival Leaders and leadership Collaboration – pacts and other parties. Speakers include Lord Kirkwood, Lord Greaves, Michael Meadowcroft and Martin Wainwright. Cost: £10 (including refreshments)
David Lloyd George
April 15, 2008 / 01:00 PM
National Liberal Club, Whitehall Place, London, SW1
Owen Lloyd George, the present and 3rd Earl Lloyd George of Dwyfor, the grandson of Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George, will speak about his famous ancestor at the Kettner Lunch (organised jointly together with the Liberal Democrat History Group) to be held at the National Liberal Club on 15th April. The lunch takes place at 1.00pm and costs £15 for two courses, followed by coffee and mints. You do not have to be a member of the National Liberal Club or the History Group to attend.
Liberals and local government in London since the 1970s
February 4, 2008 / 07:00 PM
Lady Violet Room, National Liberal Club, London
Winning local elections has been a keystone in Liberal (Democrat) success in the years since the adoption of the community politics strategy at the Eastbourne Assembly in 1970. There have been many spectacular advances across London, from the heartland of the south western boroughs to Southwark, Islington and more recently breakthroughs on Camden and Brent to share power there. But there are still black holes – ten London boroughs with no Lib Dem representation; and places like Harrow and Tower Hamlets where we controlled the council only to see a near wipe out follow. In a meeting supported by the Lib Dem group on London Councils, the umbrella organisation representing all 32 London boroughs, the City of London, the Metropolitan Police Authority and the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, the History Group will look at the performance of Liberals in London local government since the 1970s with our speakers being two key players from the party. Cllr Stephen Knight of London Councils will chair the meeting and our speakers will be Cllr Sir David Williams, first elected for Ham and Petersham Ward in 1974 and a former leader of Richmond Council and London Assembly member Mike Tuffrey, who was also GLC/ILEA member for Vauxhall in the 1980s.
The search for the greatest Liberal
September 19, 2007 / 08:00 PM
Forest Room, Quality Hotel, Brighton
William Ewart Gladstone, John Maynard Keynes, David Lloyd George or John Stuart Mill: who was the greatest British Liberal? Journal readers voted in the summer to whittle down a long-list of fifteen to these final four. Now, in the final stage, leading politicians and historians make the case for each one, and Journal readers and conference participants will be able to vote for the final choice of the greatest Liberal. Paddy Ashdown speaks for Gladstone; Tom McNally for Keynes; Kenneth Morgan for Lloyd George; and Richard Reeves for John Stuart Mill. Chair: Martin Kettle, The Guardian.
Rufus Isaacs
April 18, 2007 / 12:45 PM
National Liberal Club, Whitehall Place, SW1
The Marquess of Reading and David Howarth (Lib Dem MP for Cambridge) will talk on Rufus Isaacs, successively Liberal MP for Reading, 1904-13, Lord Chief Justice, Viceroy of India and Foreign Secretary in the 1931 National government. 12.45 for 1.00pm start. £15 for 2 course meal with coffee and mints.
Think Liberal: The Dictionary of Liberal Thought
March 2, 2007 / 08:00 PM
Charter Suite, Holiday Inn Hotel, Harrogate
‘If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.’ Locke, Bentham, Mill, Hobhouse, Keynes, Rawls … Liberalism has been built on more than three centuries work of political thinkers and writers, and the aspirations of countless human beings who have fought for freedom, democracy, the rule of law and open and tolerant societies. Now, in the first-ever such publication, the History Group’s Dictionary of Liberal Thought provides an accessible guide to the key thinkers, groups and concepts associated with liberalism – not only British but also European and American. The essential reference book for every thinking Liberal. This meeting will launch the new Dictionary of Liberal Thought. Speakers: David Howarth MP and Michael Meadowcroft. Chair: Steve Webb MP, Liberal Democrat manifesto coordinator.
Liberalism and British national identity
February 5, 2007 / 07:00 PM
Lady Violet Room, National Liberal Club
When people are asked what makes up Britishness, they often give the notions of ‘fair play’ ‘tolerance’ or ‘personal liberty’ as part of the answer. Liberals regard these concepts as elemental to liberal philosophy but just how far has liberalism informed the construction of British national identity in the last 100 years and how liberal will new British identities emerging in the Britain of devolution, European Union enlargement, multi-culturalism and the ‘War on Terror’ be? Speakers: Robert Colls, Professor of English History at Leicester University and Professor John Solomos, Head of Sociology at City University. Chair: Nick Clegg MP. (This meeting follows the History Group AGM at 6.30pm)
Yellow Book versus Orange Book: Is it time for a new New Liberalism?
September 20, 2006 / 12:45 PM
Library, Hilton Metropole Hotel, Brighton
A hundred years ago, the Liberal landslide victory in the 1906 election opened the way for a period of radical social reform based on the social-liberal ideology of the New Liberalism. British Liberalism changed decisively from its nineteenth-century Gladstonian inheritance of non-interventionism in economic and social issues to accepting a much more activist role for the state, exemplified by the introduction of graduated income tax, old-age pensions and national insurance. With a few exceptions, the party adhered to this social liberalism throughout the remainder of the century. In 2004, the authors of the Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism challenged this nanny-state liberalism and argued that the Liberal Democrats needed to return to their nineteenth-century heritage and reclaim economic liberalism. Which way now for the Liberal Democrats? What can we draw from the lessons of history? Debate the question with Paul Marshall, co-editor of the Orange Book and its successor, and Ed Randall, co-editor of the Dictionary of Liberal Thought.
The Suez crisis
July 3, 2006 / 02:55 PM
National Liberal Club
Fifty years ago, in July 1956, the Egyptian President, Colonel Nasser, nationalised the Suez Canal, to the anger and frustration of the British and French governments, who were the majority shareholders. Prime Minister Eden reached a secret agreement with France and Israel to provoke hostilities through an invasion of Sinai by Israeli forces, using this as a pretext for Anglo-French military intervention in Egypt. The decision to send British troops to occupy the canal zone led to the downfall of Eden and represented what one historian of the Liberal Party has called a watershed for Jo Grimond and his party. Fifty years on, a leading contemporary historian re-examines the impact of Suez on the opposition parties. Speaker: Peter Barberis, Professor of Politics at Manchester Metropolitan University and author of Liberal Lion, a biography of Jo Grimond. Chair: Richard Grayson.
Defender of Liberties: Charles James Fox
March 3, 2006 / 06:24 PM
Queens Suite Room 5, Harrogate International Centre
2006 saw the bicentary of the death of the Whig leader Charles James Fox. A proponent of the supremacy of Parliament, the freedom of the press and the rights and civil liberties of the people, and a believer in reform, rationalism and progress, rather than repression, the ideas he defended particularly over the challenge of the state to the liberties of the individual in time of war are as relevant to our own times as to those of the Britain of 200 years ago.
Blissful Dawn? The 1906 Election
February 7, 2006 / 01:53 PM
Guildhall, London
On 7 February 1906, the counting of votes was completed in the 1906 general election, and the Liberal Party had obtained a majority of 132 over all other parties. In addition, for the first time, 29 Labour MPs were elected and shortly afterwards the Parliamentary Labour Party was founded. To mark this anniversary, the Corporation of London is organising a lecture to which all Liberal Democrat History Group members are invited. Speaker: Lord (Kenneth) Morgan, author of definitive biographies of Keir Hardie and Jim Callaghan, and one of the foremost historians of twentieth-century Britain.
Joseph Chamberlain and the unauthorised programme
July 25, 2005 / 04:10 AM
National Liberal Club, London
This meeting looked at Joseph Chamberlain and the unauthorised programme, and how this led to the loss of the Whigs from the Liberal Party and paved the way for the New Liberalism of the 1905 government.
Liberals and organised labour
March 4, 2005 / 02:58 PM
Charter Suite, Moat House Hotel, Harrogate
The loss of the support of organised labour during the late Victorian and Edwardian period was a key factor in the decline of the Liberal Party as an electoral force. Once this confidence in the party was gone, the Liberals never got it back and trade union and labour issues have never since had the highest priority in Liberal politics. The speakers examined why and how organised labour broke away from supporting the Liberal Party, and its impact on the Liberal vote.
Civil liberties in war and peace
January 24, 2005 / 04:10 AM
Law and order has long been a major issue in British politics. The Blair Government brought in legislation to introduce national identity cards; ministers claimed that this measure will make UK citizens more secure from the threats of international terrorism and domestic crime. Especially since 9/11, how to strike the correct balance between protecting the state and promoting the liberties of the citizen has been the subject of heated political debate. This meeting examined how Liberals over the last 200 years have responded to repressive measures taken in the name of security.
Roy Jenkins: reformer, visionary, statesman
September 19, 2004 / 06:26 PM
Reforming Home Secretary, successful Chancellor of the Exchequer, principled European, groundbreaking President of the European Commission and distinguished man of letters, Roy Jenkins had a deep impact on British politics and inspired generations of liberals. This meeting marked the publication of Roy Jenkins: A Retrospective (Oxford University Press), a collection of essays by friends and associates from every stage of his life, edited by Andrew Adonis and Keith Thomas.
Liberals in Liverpool: Their Legacy
March 19, 2004 / 12:33 AM
Stanley Room, Prince of Wales Hotel, Southport
Liverpool has been a Liberal Democrat success. Why? Trevor Jones and Mike Storey outline the pioneering campaigning that took the city from Labour and its continuing legacy.
Winston Churchill: A Liberal Politician
February 9, 2004 / 04:10 AM
It is often forgotten that Winston Churchill served in four different governments as a Liberal minister, between 1905 and 1922. Indeed, the year 2004 was the centenary of his joining the Liberal Party, when he crossed the floor of the Commons in protest at the Conservatives lurch away from free trade. This meeting examined Churchill’s Liberal legacy.
Clement Davies Liberal Party Saviour?
September 21, 2003 / 04:10 AM
Clement Davies led the Liberal Party from 1945 to 1956. During that time, the party came very close to dying out but it survived. He turned down Churchills offer of a government position and in so doing preserved the partys integrity. His tenure was as long as that of Jo Grimond, the hero of modern Liberalism. And yet today Davies leadership is hardly remembered at all. Did Clement Davies save the Liberal Party from extinction? Or was he part of the problem?
The Fall of the Lloyd George Coalition
July 14, 2003 / 04:10 AM
The summer 2003 History Group meeting examined the events which brought an end to the last peacetime participation by the Liberal Party in UK government – when Lloyd George’s coalition was overthrown by a revolt of backbench Conservatives in 1922. The meeting was held jointly with the Conservative History Group.
Liberal Heroines
March 14, 2003 / 08:33 PM
The speakers nominated the women from history who inspired them most, and explained why.
Liberal Party General Election campaigns after 1945
February 3, 2003 / 12:31 AM
With David Butler, longstanding co-author and author of the acclaimed Nuffield General Election studies, and Neil Stockley, former Director of Policy, Liberal Democrats. David Butler assessed the continuities and differences, strengths and weaknesses of Liberal campaigns and their contributions to the partys fortunes. Neil Stockley talked about the role of Liberal election manifestos.
The Legacy of Jo Grimond – Remembering Jo
September 22, 2002 / 04:10 AM
There were many at the Brighton Conference who were in no doubt that if it wasn’t for a young, charismatic party leader they would have no party at all. In 1956 Jo Grimond took over the reigns of the Liberal Party and, as many will argue, he saved it from death. He was responsible for the Liberal Party’s first post-war revival the highlight of which was the capture of Orpington in 1962. It was his radicalism, enthusiasm and personal charisma that tempted the likes of Menzies Campbell and David Steel to get involved in Liberal Politics. Part of the attraction for Menzies Campbell was that Grimond “was arguing for a non-doctrinaire, non-socialist party in the centre-left,” whilst David Steel was attracted by Grimond’s personality and his power of argument. Grimond was associated with the strategy of realignment of the left, which would bring together the nations radical, progressive forces into one effective political movement. It is a strategy that remains very much in play today, most obviously in the devolved Parliaments of Scotland and Wales, but also at the highest level within the Liberal Democrat and Labour Parties in Westminster.
Old Liberals, New Liberals and Social Democrats
July 1, 2002 / 04:10 AM
At their Autumn Conference, the Liberal Democrats debated their core values and principles in detail for only the second time since the party was formed in 1988. Some saw the party as a largely a continuation of the Liberal tradition, which has been based primarily on a commitment to the rights of individuals. Others said that the influence of Social Democratic thinking, which has tended to emphasise the importance of greater equality as a central goal, was too often overlooked. But they may really be the political heirs of the socially reforming New Liberals who came to prominence in the early twentieth century. Such thinkers and politicians as J.M. Keynes, William Beveridge, Jo Grimond and E.F. Schumacher have undoubtedly been influential. The History Groups summer meeting tried to shed some light on who are the Liberal Democrats philosophical antecedents.
Exchange goods not bombs
March 9, 2002 / 04:10 AM
Free Trade, Liberalism and the Manchester School
Globalisation and its costs and benefits are at the heart of much of todays political debate. But intense debates on the liberalisation of international trade are by no means new. Free trade was one of the great rallying cries of the Victorian Liberal Party. In the 1840s, the Anti-Corn Law League successfully campaigned for abolition of the high duties on the import of grain established after the Napoleonic Wars to protect British agriculture from foreign competition. Manchester, the centre of the cotton industry, whose products were denied access to overseas markets because of continental grain-growers inability to export to Britain, became the headquarters of the League. The radical Liberals Richard Cobden and John Bright were its leaders. Our meeting at Manchester Conference looked at the work and legacy of Cobden, Bright and the Manchester School of Liberalism. This meeting was held at the Peoples History Museum in conjunction with its current exhibition, “Reforming Manchester: Liberals and the City.”
Public Services or State Services? – The Liberal Legacy
February 19, 2002 / 04:10 AM
People are concerned as never before with the deterioration of the NHS, the quality and safety of rail services and the standard of education. With Labour’s promises of big improvements, its controversial solutions in some areas and the debate that is developing inside the Liberal Democrats, public services are sure to stay at the top of the political agenda. Ever since Joseph Chamberlain, as Mayor of Birmingham, purchased two gas companies and a water works, established public transport and embarked on slum clearance programmes, Liberals have claimed a proud record as innovative champions of public services. Is there a Liberal tradition in the public services that we should carry on today? Was the work of Chamberlain and others an essential aspect of Liberalism? Or was it simply local politics?
Speeches and Speech-makers
September 25, 2001 / 04:10 AM
The official launch of the Liberal Democrat History Group’s new book, Great Liberal Speeches, published by Politicos Publishing.
Post-war Liberalism and the Politics of Race and Immigration
July 2, 2001 / 04:10 AM
In the run-up to the 2001 general election, the issues of asylum and race relations moved to centre stage, with Liberal Democrats winning plaudits for their firm stand against discrimination. But the arguments are not new. Race relations and immigration were a major phenomenon of post-war politics. From the Macmillan Governments “voucher” system for would-be immigrants to Labours 1968 legislation to end the passport privileges of Kenyan Asians, both major parties sought to pander to white prejudice. The late 1960s also saw Enoch Powells infamous call for the repatriation of black and other Commonwealth immigrants and the rise of the National Front. Where did Liberals stand? And what impact did racial politics and immigration have on Liberalism?
From Midlothian to Direct Mail: Parliamentary and Political Campaigning
March 16, 2001 / 04:10 AM
On the eve of the first general election campaign of the twenty-first century, this meeting examined the development of campaigning techniques since the Great Reform Act of 1832. From the introduction of electoral registers, the gradual elimination of corruption, and the appearance of new forms of communications – railways, the telegraph and newspapers – to the computerised and direct-mail based innovations of the SDP, had campaigns changed out of all recognition, or did they remain the same at heart?
The Limehouse Declaration and the birth of the SDP
January 29, 2001 / 04:10 AM
On 25 January 1981, four former Labour cabinet ministers – Roy Jenkins, David Owen, William Rodgers and Shirley Williams – published the Limehouse Declaration, publicly signalling their intention to quit the leftward path that the Labour Party had taken. The Declaration advocated a classless society and called for the realignment of British politics. After an overwhelming public response, the SDP came into being two months later. Twenty years on, the Liberal Democrat History Group looked at the origins and importance of the Limehouse Declaration. Did it signal the end of both Old Labour and Liberal Party irrelevance? Or did it back the progressive forces in British politics into a cul-de-sac? Was the SDP a mistake? Or was the party essential for both the reform of Labour and a rebirth of Liberalism?
‘The Fruits of the Liberty Tree’ – The Liberal Tradition in North America
September 17, 2000 / 04:10 AM
In a US Presidential election year, we examined the history of the Liberal tradition in North America. The Canadian Liberal Party is one of the most successful liberal parties in the world, in terms of winning elections – why? And who were the liberals in the United States?
“Methods of Barbarism” – Liberalism and the Boer War
July 3, 2000 / 04:10 AM
“When is a war not a war?” asked the Liberal leader Campbell-Bannerman. “When it is carried on by methods of barbarism in South Africa.” One hundred years after the Boer War began, Professor Denis Judd (University of North London), author of The Boer War and Empire, reviewed the response of Liberalism to the War. Dr Jacqueline Beaumont, Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes University, discussed the attitudes of the Liberal press.
Liberalism in the West Country
March 18, 2000 / 04:10 AM
The West Country has a special place in the Liberal tradition. Home to Isaac Foot and his sons, Thorpe, Penhaligon, Pardoe … For much of the post-war period, the Liberal Party‘s parliamentary representation rested largely on the South West English MPs, along with their colleagues in the rest of the “Celtic fringe”. Michael Steed (University of Kent) and Adrian Lee (University of Plymouth University), discussed the survival and strength of Liberalism in the West Country, at a meeting in the city that was the stronghold of the Foot dynasty.
Leaders Good and Bad
February 28, 2000 / 04:10 AM
Robert Maclennan MP, himself a former leader of the SDP, and Professor Peter Clarke, leading expert on the New Liberals, looked at leaders of the Liberal Party and the SDP over the last hundred years, using analysis and anecdotes to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of the two parties leaders. The audience was polled to see who they consider was the best and the worst Liberal/SDP leader of the last century.
Dancing the Charleston Again – Liberal/Labour relations 1918-31
November 22, 1999 / 04:10 AM
Professor Ben Pimlott (Warden of Goldsmiths College and biographer of Hugh Dalton) and Dr David Dutton (biographer of Sir John Simon) reviewed relations between Liberals and Labour during the key period when Labour established itself as the main opposition party to the Conservatives.
1974 Remembered
September 19, 1999 / 04:10 AM
The two elections of 1974 formed a peak of the second post-war Liberal revival, giving the party six million votes but no more than fourteen MPs. Participants in the campaigns – including Tim Beaumont, Viv Bingham, Adrian Slade, Sir Cyril Smith, Paul Tyler MP and Richard Wainwright – shared their recollections of the elections.
Liberalism and Nationalism: Allies or Enemies?
March 5, 1999 / 04:10 AM
Liberals and Nationalists have sometimes shared common aims. But how close are they? Are their basic philosophies compatible with each other? How has cooperation worked in practice? Why did nineteenth-century Liberals support nationalist movements while their twentieth-century counterparts have tended to oppose them?
No More Heroes Any More?
September 20, 1998 / 04:10 AM
What have Liberal Democrats today to learn from Liberal heroes of the past? Who contributed most to the development of the party and of Liberalism? What common themes bind them together? Two speakers offered their choices: Bill Rodgers (Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank), one of the SDPs “Gang of Four” and leader of the Liberal Democrat peers; and Graham Watson MEP, former aide to David Steel and the one of the Liberal Democrats first two Euro-MPs. Chair: Graham Tope (Lord Tope of Cheam). The meeting marked the launch of the Liberal Democrat History Group’s major publication, the Dictionary of Liberal Biography.
The Legacy of Gladstone
July 20, 1998 / 04:10 AM
In the centenary year of Gladstone’s death, this meeting looked at three crucial aspects of the life of the most famous Liberal Prime Minister. Conrad Russell, historian and Liberal Democrat front bencher in the Lords, looked at what the Liberal Democrats could learn from Gladstone. John Maloney, lecturer in economics at Exeter University, will look at Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer, the founder of the modern Treasury; and Professor H. C. G. Matthew, editor of Gladstones diaries and biographer of Gladstone, Fellow of St Hugh’s College, Oxford, looked at Gladstone and Ireland, the abiding passion of his later years.
The struggle for women’s rights
March 13, 1998 / 04:10 AM
What did the Party and its predecessors achieve for women’s rights, from the suffragettes onwards?
Reform of the House of Lords in the Twentieth Century
January 19, 1998 / 04:10 AM
Reform of the House of Lords was one aspect of the new governments manifesto which it seemed in no hurry to implement. The meeting discussed attempts at reform in the twentieth century: the Parliament Act of 1911 and Labour’s attempts to reform the Lords in the 1960s; together with some thoughts on the future of the Second Chamber.
From Beveridge to Blair: Reform of the Welfare State
September 22, 1997 / 02:35 PM
“Social Insurance and Allied Services – report by Sir William Beveridge” was published in December 1942, and its proposals were passed into legislation by Attlee’s government between 1945 and 1948. As Addison put it, “the historian of social administration finds in the Beveridge Report the blueprint of the postwar welfare state in Britain”. Along with Keynes, Beveridge provided the Liberal powerhouse of ideas which Labour governments implemented, and Conservative governments retained, for almost forty years. But as the century nears its end, could Beveridges framework – modified and distorted by the Thatcher administations as it was – provide the blueprint for the modern welfare state?
Religion and the Liberal Party
July 7, 1997 / 04:10 AM
“The Liberal policy”, stated one nonconformist minister late last century, “makes for the establishment of the Kingdom of God”. Our two speakers examined the role that religion and religious movements played in the history of the Liberal Party. Jonathan Parry (Pembroke College, Cambridge; author of The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain) examined the 19th century, while Alan Beith MP (Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrat MPs) dealt with the 20th.
Why didn’t the Liberal Party Die? The first Liberal revival, 1959-66
March 7, 1997 / 02:40 PM
After almost thirty years of continuous decline, the leadership of Jo Grimond, and byelection and local election victories, seemed to herald a new era for the Liberal Party. Why did it all go wrong? William Wallace (Lord Wallace of Saltaire), Lords spokesman on defence and reader in international relations at the LSE, examined the record.
Liberal-Tory Pacts: Partnership of principle or struggle for survival?
March 1, 1997 / 04:10 AM
Michael Kandiah, Senior Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary British History, spoke on Liberal-Conservative relations in the 1940s and 1950s. He looked at both the national negotiations which concluded in the offer of a cabinet post to Clement Davies by Churchill in 1951, and at the local pacts in Huddersfield and Bolton, which put Liberal MPs in Parliament. Dr Kandiah was in the process of writing a biography of Lord Woolton.
Landslide for the Left
September 22, 1996 / 04:10 AM
Massive Tory defeat …. sweeping opposition landslide victory …. major gains by small third party …. but what does the new government stand for other than opposition to unpopular Conservative policies? The outcome of the 1997 general election? No – it happened in 1906, when Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman led the Liberal Party to a crushing victory over Arthur Balfour’s Unionists, with the newly-formed Labour Party making important gains on the back of an electoral pact with the Liberals. And despite the lack of any clear Liberal election programme other than reversal of unpopular Tory policies, the following eight years were to see one of the most sustained periods of political and social reform of the twentieth century, as the Government put into practice the thinking and policies of the New Liberalism. Nine decades later, were similar ingredients in place once again? The topic was discussed by Andrew Adonis, Political Editor of the Observer; John Grigg, biographer of Lloyd George; and Earl Russell, historian and Lords spokesman on social security.
God Gave the Land to the People!
July 29, 1996 / 04:10 AM
The speaker is a former lecturer at the University of Surrey, several times a Liberal candidate and author of The History of the Liberal Party 1895-1970. The policy of the Liberal Party on the question of the land.
The European Inheritance
March 15, 1996 / 03:54 PM
Unity in Europe was a central theme for the Liberal Party since Gladstone’s day, and was an important factor behind the SDP’s breakaway from the Labour Party. Yet continental liberal parties have not always proved so enthusiastic. Our three speakers examined the historical record.
The Repeal of the Corn Laws
February 14, 1996 / 04:10 AM
The repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 split the Tories for a generation, laid the foundations of the Victorian Liberal Party and ushered in nearly a century of free trade orthodoxy in economic policy. One hundred and fifty years later, the Liberal Democrat History Group discussed this momentous event with one of the period’s leading historians.
Does New Labour leave room for New Liberals?
September 17, 1995 / 04:10 AM
The reforming Liberal Governments of 1906-14 helped lay the foundations of the British welfare state; amongst other achievements, they introduced old age pensions, national insurance and the principle of graduated taxation. Underpinning these political achievements lay the school of thought known as the “New Liberalism”. New Liberal writers such as Green, Hobhouse and Hobson advanced the philosophical underpinnings of the Liberal Party onwards from Gladstonian individualism, developing the concept of community and drawing attention to the need for positive action to redress social and economic inequalities. Yet theirs was still identifiably a liberal and non-collectivist approach, stressing the need for participative reformism, rather than seeking to impose reforms from above. Was Tony Blair’s “new Labour” Party adopting this agenda? Or were the Liberal Democrats the true inheritors of the New Liberalism?
Old Heroes for a New Party
March 10, 1995 / 04:10 AM
Each talked about a philosopher, writer or politician of the past who still had something of relevance to contribute to the Party’s principles and policies. The aim was to connect the political beliefs and values which modern day Liberal Democrats hold with a historical tradition, or school of thought, or individual writings. (Alan Beith chose W. T. Stead, Sir William Goodhart Judge Learned Hand.)
We Can Conquer Unemployment
September 18, 1994 / 04:10 AM
The subject of the meeting was the influence of Keynes’s and Lloyd George’s Yellow Book on the problems of conquering unemployment in the 1920s and 1930s. With one of the major policy paper debates at Brighton that year being on Employment Policy, this provided us with a chance to trace the development of Liberal/Liberal Democrat thought on this important topic. Lord Skidelsky was Professor of Political Economy at University of Warwick. His books include Politicians and the Slump and Oswald Mosley; he is perhaps best known for his biography of Keynes.
Witness Seminar: The Origins of Community Politics
June 21, 1994 / 04:10 AM
Gordon Lishman discussed the background to the Eastbourne resolution of 1970, which first committed the Liberal Party to community politics. Topics covered included the electoral and campaigning context of the time, the development of the ideology of community politics and the tactics required to persuade the Assembly to vote for it.
Why are the English frightened of constitutional change?
September 22, 1993 / 04:10 AM
The reform of Britain‘s constitution has been a watchword of the Liberal Democrats and its predecessors for over 150 years. This is partly because, compared to other countries, constitutional change has been relatively rare – particularly in England, and particularly in the 20th century. This meeting examined why this should be so. We concentrated on the areas of the reform of Parliament, and of decentralisation of power.
Liberals and Labour – Natural Allies?
September 16, 1992 / 04:10 AM
The possibility of cooperation between Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party had been much talked about. The twentieth century had in fact seen several examples of such cooperation – including the electoral pact of 1906, the Labour-supported Liberal minority government of 1910-14, the Liberal-supported Labour minority governments of 1924 and 1929-31, and of course the Lib-Lab Pact of 1976-78.
Hung Parliaments and Coalition Governments: Learning the Lessons of History
September 8, 1991 / 04:10 AM
The next election will see a bigger chance of a hung parliament than any fought over the last thirteen years. But what happens if the Liberal Democrats do end up holding the balance?
Survival in the Balance: The Liberal Party after 1945
September 17, 1990 / 12:18 AM
Dr Stevenson examined the history of the Liberal Party after 1945, and its attempt to carve out an identity for itself in a hostile political world. He explored the historical dimension of the continuous tension within the Party between those members who saw its policies as essentially centrist, and those who fought for them be radical. This conflict was reviewed against the background of the darkest years of the Liberal Party’s history: the many false dawns of successive but unsustained revivals, and its desperate struggle for survival, dependent in many cases on pacts with local Conservative associations to maintain a bare toehold at Westminster.
Englands Bourgeois Revolution: Past, present, future or never?
September 29, 1988 / 02:04 PM
In the popular view, the Civil War and Glorious Revolution of the seventeenth century heralded the “bourgeois revolution” of which Thatcherism has now proved the culmination. Political change – the triumph of the middle over the upper classes – inevitably followed the social and economic changes deriving from the growing importance of commerce and industry compared to the land. But did it? In this fringe meeting, Professor Russell put the alternative view, that English society steadily gained those characteristics identified as “middle class” from the fourteenth century onwards. Political revolution need not follow directly from social change. There never was any “bourgeois revolution”.
Liberals and Social Democrats
September 29, 1988 / 04:10 AM
Did the formation of the Social & Liberal Democrats represent the final coming together of the two philosophical traditions united in the Liberal Party of the turn of the century and split by the strains of war and the subsequent Liberal decline?