Leaders
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Review: An extraordinary life
Review of Paddy Ashdown, A Fortunate Life: The Autobiography of Paddy Ashdown (Aurum Press, 2009).
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‘Maistly Scotch’: Campbell-Bannerman and Liberal leadership
Assessment of the record of the man who led the Liberals into the 1906 landslide.
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Leaders Good and Bad
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…
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The afterlives of former Liberal prime ministers
A look at the lives in retirement of Russell, Gladstone, Rosebery, Asquith and Lloyd George.
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‘He would not stoop, he did not conquer’
Review of Robert Rhodes James, Rosebery (Phoenix, 1995).
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The legacy of Gladstone
The Grand Old Man’s record.
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Sir Archibald Sinclair (Viscount Thurso), 1890-1970
Archibald Sinclair was the Liberal leader from 1935 to 1945. He was a leading figure in British politics in that period, first as an outspoken critic of appeasement, and then as a minister during the war. For Liberals, his importance lay in his belief in the possibility of a Liberal revival, which was crucial in…
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Herbert Samuel (Viscount Samuel), 1870-1963
Herbert Samuel was a leading figure in the Liberal Party for over fifty years, from its zenith before the First World War to the nadir of its fortunes in the mid-1950s. With Sinclair, he was the last independent Liberal to serve in the Cabinet. A respected statesman, formidable mediator and administrator, and notable political thinker,…
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William Ewart Gladstone, 1809-1898
Amongst the number of outstanding statesmen in Victorian Britain, Gladstone was unquestionably the greatest. He brought to his public life an exceptional physical, mental and spiritual vitality. He was a man of independent but by no means unchanging mind. His combination of moral zeal and the willingness to think on and on, no doubt explains…