1988-2010
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Helen Suzman: An Appreciation
Personal recollection of the life of South Africa’s first anti-apartheid MP.
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Report: Election 2005 in historical perspective
with John Curtice, Andrew Russell and Chris Rennard.
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Paddy Ashdown: The Chard Speech
Paddy Ashdown on realignment; the Guildhall, Chard, Somerset, 9 May 1992.
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Michael Meadowcroft on the merger negotiations
It is difficult to realise that it is now sixteen years since the trauma and angst of the merger negotiations. As far as factual accuracy is concerned the book by Tony Greaves and Rachael Pitchford is an excellent record of the proceedings. There were only a few points of difference that I took up with…
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Realignment of the left
The end of Jo Grimond's leadership in 1967 heralded a bleak period for the Liberal Party. His successor, Jeremy Thorpe, was never assured of the complete confidence of his parliamentary colleagues. Unlike Grimond, he displayed little interest in ideas, though he was an accomplished organiser, fund-raiser and speaker.
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Bill Rodgers (Lord Rodgers), 1928-
Bill Rodgers – one of the Gang of Four who founded the SDP, and now (as Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank) the leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords – was born in Liverpool on 28 October 1928 and named William Thomas Rodgers. His father was employed for forty years by the…
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Michael Meadowcroft, 1942-2026
Michael Meadowcroft was Liberal MP for Leeds West from 1983 to 1987, confounding sceptics to win a solidly inner-city seat by using the community politics approach which he had helped to develop over the preceding fifteen years. He was the main, indeed very nearly the only, philosopher of applied Liberalism within the old Liberal Party…
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Jo Grimond (Lord Grimond), 1913-1993
Regarded by many contemporary Liberals as their spiritual leader and mentor, Jo Grimond was a figure of great magnetism and intellectual originality. He was once described as a politician on whom the gods smile, and inspired a rare degree of public affection.