From: mmh@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (Matthew Huntbach)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: The Liberal Party RIP.
Date: 11 Jan 93 15:27:58 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept, QMW, University of London, UK.

In article <1993Jan11.121938.17584@infodev.cam.ac.uk> gdb15@cl.cam.ac.uk writes:
>In article <1993Jan11.101125.26245@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> mmh@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (Matthew Huntbach) writes:
>>In article <C0JzHB.9GG@dscomsa.desy.de> Hallam@zeus02.desy.de writes:
>
>>>Except that the Liberals started from being a party of government and
>>>managed to self destruct with two massive splits over Ireland and
>>>Lloyd George.
>>
>>Yes, but had they not, they would have remained one of the two
>>establishment parties, with all the arrogance that involves,
>>and I doubt I would be much interested in them.
>
>Hmm -- that's an interesting comment.  I was always under the
>impression that you backed the Liberal (Democrat)s because you
>were in broad agreement with their principles, not because they
>were the underdog.  If the Alliance had made a breakthrough in
>1983, do you think you would have switched parties?
>
To a large extent, I think the principles of the Liberal Party
were shaped by them being the underdog. Given that joining the
Liberals virtually meant waving goodbye to any sort of political
career, the only reason for joining was a sincere belief in its
principles, and a bitter opposition to the existing political
setup. Yes, this was upset a bit in the early 1980s, when it
looked as if a breakthrough might be made, and a lot of
careerist minded people joined up (mostly to the SDP rather
than the Liberals), but many of this sort have dropped out. I
think if the Liberal Party had been a route to power, if it had
been able to offer patronage, and had leaders with comfy
ministerial jobs, it would have been a very different thing, in
policies and principles as much as anything else. I may well
have switched to the Green Party.

>>in the first place. Personally, I think Ashdown was wrong to
>>suggest that the future of the LibDems was to "replace Labour".
>>This was all part of the SDP-yuppy influence. My view has
>>always been that the prinbciple job of the Liberals was to
>>oppose the Tories, with occasional forays against LLabour when
>>they have become grossly incompetent in certain of their rotten
>>boroughs.
>
>Is this just a reflection of current political demography, or do you
>genuinely believe that the Liberals should be considered primarily as
>an anti-Tory party?  This strikes me as rather negative -- almost as
>though you don't want them to do too well.  It also suggests that
>you seem them as a centre-left rather than a genuinely centrist party.
>
Ugh, no I really don't see the LibDems as a "centrist" party,
and I've spent a lot of time fighting people who want to move
them in that direction. Ideally, I would like to see them as an
"alternative left" to Labour, though in many ways I don't see
the left-right spectrum as useful in the first place.

>>>If Paddy had had any guts he would have voted against Maastricht. The idea
>>>of a federal Europe is attractive, but the manner in which the
>>>Maastricht treaty was produced was despicable.
>
>The problem here is that the Liberals are the only party who can say
>they've been fully committed to European integration right from the
>start, and so even though the Maastricht treaty isn't perfect they
>had to vote for it because there is at present no alternative.

Yes, I agree with this analysis, and though while I personally
think that Maastricht is so flawed that I would argue against
it, I don't condemn the LibDem parliamentarians for voting for
it, even though it had the unfortunate side-effect of being
seen as a vote of support for the Major government.

Matthew Huntbach
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british