page_title: Paddy Ashdown
section_title: Leader of Liberal Democrats
hierarchical_section_title: Paddy Ashdown / Member of Parliament / Leader of Liberal Democrats
caption_attribution_description: Paddy Ashdown, General Election campaign, 1992, in Chippenham
context_page_description: Jeremy John Durham Ashdown, Baron Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, GCMG, CH, KBE, PC, known as Paddy Ashdown, was a British politician and diplomat who served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 1988 to 1999. He achieved international recognition for his role in Bosnia–Herzegovina as its High Representative from 2002 to 2006, following his vigorous lobbying for military action against Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
  After serving as a Royal Marine and Special Boat Service officer and as an intelligence officer in the UK security services, Ashdown was elected Member of Parliament for Yeovil in 1983 before retiring in 2001.
  Ashdown received national recognition for his services by appointment as Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George in the 2006 New Year Honours and Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in the 2015 New Year Honours. In 2017, Ashdown was appointed an Officier of the Légion d'Honneur by the French Government.
  A polyglot, Ashdown had an interpretership qualification in Mandarin and was fluent in several other languages.
context_section_description: When the Liberal Party merged in 1988 with the Social Democrats to form the Social and Liberal Democrats (name shortened in 1989 to "Liberal Democrats"), he was elected as the new party's leader and made a Privy Councillor in January 1989.
  Ashdown led the Liberal Democrats into two general elections, in 1992 and 1997, and three European Parliament elections, in 1989, 1994 and 1999. The Lib Dems failed to win any seats in the 1989 European Parliament election and recorded a net loss of two seats in the 1992 general election, when the party was still recovering from the after-effects of the 1988 merger. In 1994, the party gained its first two Members of European Parliament. At the 1997 election, the Liberal Democrats won 46 seats, their best performance since the 1920s, though they did take a smaller share of the vote than they had done at the 1992 election. While the Liberal Democrats vote share decreased in the 1999 European Parliament election, the move from first-past-the-post to the D'Hondt method saw the party make a net gain of 8 seats.
  Between 1993 and 1997, he was a notable proponent of co-operation between the Liberal Democrats and "New Labour", and had regular secret meetings with Tony Blair to discuss the possibility of a coalition government. This was despite Labour's opinion poll showings from late 1992 onwards virtually all suggesting that they would gain a majority at the next election, particularly in the first year or so of Blair's leadership following his appointment in mid-1994. The discussions began in early 1993, while the party was still being led by Blair's predecessor John Smith, who died suddenly in May 1994. After Blair was elected as Labour leader the talks continued.
  There was no need for a coalition, as the 1997 general election ended in a Labour landslide victory. The election also saw a breakthrough for the Liberal Democrats despite receiving fewer votes than in 1992; they increased their representation from 18 to 46. A "Joint Cabinet Committee" (JCC) including senior Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians was then created to discuss the implementation of the two parties' shared priorities for constitutional reform; its remit was later expanded to include other issues on which Blair and Ashdown saw scope for co-operation between the two parties. Ashdown's successor as Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy, deliberately allowed the JCC to slip into abeyance until it effectively stopped meeting.
caption: Ashdown in Chippenham during the 1992 general election campaign
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