The Liberal Party and the Liberal Democrats - Professor Vernon Bogdanor FBA CBE
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- čas přidán 12. 12. 2017
- The Liberal Party was formed in the 1850s and was the dominant force in British politics for the next 30 years. But, after the First World War, it fell into decline, and it was almost extinguished in the 1950s. Since then, however, the Liberals and their successor party, the Liberal Democrats, have enjoyed a revival, and they re-entered government in 2010 for the first time since 1945.
What is the explanation for the decline and subsequent revival of the party?
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-an...
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During the period of the court trial of Jeremy Thorpe my 14 yr old classmates were barely aware of the meaning of the word Liberal but were busy being bored to death whilst our CSE English Teacher Miss Rycroft read aloud from “ Day of The Triffids” or “Beyond The Conurbs “ - until she quoted a passage which went “ He provided me with a Liberal education “ - with this , our resident wit Stuart piped up to ask the young teacher “ Miss - does that mean he Bummed him ? “ …..Us kids roared but Miss Rycroft didn’t share the rest of the class’ hoot & Pressey was ejected by a fuming English Teacher to be caned by Deputy Head. 🙄🐢
Well done and thanks for posting, Gresham.
I am looking forward to the other UK party lectures
Really does show you that had a few key decisions in history have gone in another way, how different the landscape would be.
I never really understood the old Liberal party. Now I do. Thank you Professor!
As always a very good lecture but why bypass Jeremy Thorpe.
Za za
It's a shame he glossed over the area of politics which the Liberal Party dominated in the 1970s - canine execution
Prof Bogdanor speaks as if the leadership of Jeremy Thorpe never happened. Strange.
Correction: The Conservatives lost more seats in 1997 than Labour lost in 2010. They also lost more seats in 1945 than Labour in 2010.
The Liberal Party still exists, not all the Liberals merged with the SDP to form the Liberal Democrat’s in 1988. Doing so they jettisoned what they saw as cumbersome intellectual baggage, other Liberals saw this as fundamental liberal philosophy and resolved to continue with their commitment to The Liberal Party. The Liberal Party was actually Eurosceptic and currently have 30 councillors.
Liberal Party (1989) currently has 10 councillors.
It had fine MPs David Penhaligan leading the way.
54:35 that quote from Gordon Brown hurt my soul, and I’m not even a Brit
Very good lecture but not a single mention of Jeremy Thorpe and his 9 year leadership of the party. Why not?
Benjamin Eckford because He was completely ineffective as leader
All the more reason to explain why his leadership went wrong
Because it's only an hour long and can't mention everything that has happened to the party in the last century
Gladstone wasn't the only Prime Minister to head four governments: Harold Wilson equalled the feat.
Gladstone's were all non-consecutive
43:37 I'm pretty sure that's incorrect. I checked a document from the house of commons library and the Labour party got more votes in England than the SDP-Liberal alliance in the 1983 general election
You are correct Labour got 26.9% in England and the Alliance got 26.4% in England.
40:00 I would've thought that winning conservative seats would've been the most appealing thing for the left - getting more of a victory in a constituency you already won isn't a big deal
“Largest loss of seats for any government since 1931”
Did he forget about 1997
I admit to being one of those people who voted liberal democrat in the 2010 election, the first election I was eligible to vote in ever. I would have preferred a coalition with Labour but tried to give Nick Clegg The benefit of the doubt and thought they could at least hold back the conservatives from their most hard line policies.
Overtime though it became apparent that he really didn't secure enough concessions in the coalition agreement. He got one measly referendum on an imperfect (those still better than PTP) voting system that was easily twisted and distorted by conservative media into being about Clegg himself. The 180 on tuition fees also stung hard, They could have at least blocked the rise. And then he failed to get any movement on Lords reform. People grew disillusioned though still were not willing to vote for Labour instead. Rather just abstaining (or maybe just throwing their votes to the Greens, thus going nowhere).
David Penhaligan the finest Liberal MP puts the present rubbish to shame.
Many true facts..Thanks 4 the vids. All this enfranchisement and politics yet we do not have a system where we can prevent mental/societal diseases. Ie epidemic of drug culture. Maybe AI can come up with a solution. Implementing options along a neurological path - It takes a community working together to develop enough proof to override the fear, nationalism and emotional blackmail that confuse us today
When Classical Liberalism gave up Inalienable Property Rights in the name of social democracy, it ceded 100% of the principle that one had an Inalienable Right to the Fruits of Ones' Labour. It said violence by the State in terms of taking private property by force was OK, and that's when "New Liberalism" began its giant degeneration away from the Inalienable Natural Rights defended by the Classical Liberals. If the modern socialism of the US and the UK and EU were thoroughly abandoned, and with modern technology and productivity, all needs could be met in modern society by private voluntary organizations.
32:03
The right response to socialism, or communism, or anarchy, or fascism, or monopoly privilege (i.e., what we too easy refer to as "capitalism") is found in the writings of Henry George. Remove all monopoly privileges from the systems of law and taxation and the result is cooperative individualism: full equality of opportunity, full individual liberty, within a cooperative social framework. To paraphrase Adam Smith, the role of government is to ensure that a fair field with no favors exists. Markets operate efficiently and fairly when none of the participants enjoys privilege. Few understood better than Henry George the true nature of privilege and what must be done to remove all forms of privilege from our socio-political arrangements and institutions. Of these, he counted "rentier" (i.e., landed) privilege as the most destructive to the promise of democracy.
Edward J. Dodson, M.L.A.,Director
School of Cooperative Individualism
www.cooperative-individualism.org
To call J M Keynes a "Liberal" is completely the opposite of the facts. Keynes believed in government intervention in the free market of interest rates, and manipulation of the economy through government economic policy.. Modern Libertarians condemn him (Hayek, Mises, Rothbard) as the complete antithesis of Liberalism, and they are right. Mises was the real Liberal.
One should not confuse the views of late 19th century/early 20th century "Liberals" and the "liberalism" that emerged as a middle ground between the progressive left and the conservative right. Francis Neilson falls into the former category with those who embraced free trade and the public collection of the rent of land. Liberalism brought about laws and regulations that attempted (with not very good results) to find a balance between property rights and human rights. Keynes fell safely in the latter group. Read the book on the History of the Liberal Party in Britain by historian Roy Douglas.
Yea a lot of people tend to confuse liberals with democrats I just stopped trying to correct them ..
Revoke Article 50.