Tag Archives: liberal democrat history group

VIDEO: Paddy Ashdown, Shirley Williams and Julian Glover on the Liberal Democrats, recession and The Guardian

By Mark Pack | Published 23rd December 2011 - 10:55 am

You can now watch again in full one of the best fringe meetings from the party conference, which saw Paddy Ashdown, Shirley Williams and the then Guardian editorial writer Julian Glover launch a new history of the party and its predecessors, Peace, Reform and Liberation.*

Julian Glover gave a very funny speech about his newspaper’s love/hate relationship with the party – “So there you have it, 150 years from The Guardian and the Manchester Guardian calling on the Liberal Party and the Liberal Democrats to be brave, radical; praising the party’s policies and then writing it off as irrelevant”.

Shirley Williams …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lords Reform 1911-2011: watch the conference meeting

By Mark Pack | Published 2nd April 2011 - 10:27 am

The 1911 Parliament Act, introduced in the wake of the rejection by the House of Lords of Lloyd George’s People’s Budget and the two general elections of 1910, was the first successful reform of the powers of the upper house and gave constitutional supremacy to the elected House of Commons.

One hundred years after the 1911 Parliament Act, the Liberal Democrat History Group’s fringe meeting at Sheffield Conference examined the development of Lords reform since and looked forward to the Coalition’s plans for the most far-reaching changes to the House of Lords since the Liberal governments reforms of 1911 ended the …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , | Leave a comment

Conference preview: the four best fringe meetings

By Mark Pack | Published 7th March 2011 - 10:25 am

With the Liberal Democrat (federal party) spring conference coming up in Sheffield  on 11-13th March, I am going to be doing a series of posts previewing some of the main items up for debate, expanding on my previous whistlestop tour of the conference agenda.

First, however, is a look at the fringe meetings being held over the weekend. These meetings may not have the power to decide in the way that conference debates can, but they do often give a great chance to hear issues discussed in greater and more expert detail than the rather staccato main hall style of 3-5 …

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The 2010 general election in historical perspective

By Duncan Brack | Published 18th September 2010 - 4:27 pm

John Curtice, well-known psephologist and one of the relatively few political academics to take the trouble to study and understand the Liberal Democrats, has published his analysis of the 2010 election from a Lib Dem point of view.

Writing in the latest issue of the Journal of Liberal History, he looks at why the Liberal Democrat ‘surge’ eventually failed to deliver and why the party’s natural disappointment at the result may be masking what was in reality an impressive result – the second best, in terms of seats, since 1929, and the second best, in terms of votes, since 1923.

However, the …

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference | Also tagged , , | 4 Comments

Support the Liberal Party’s 150th anniversary plaque appeal

By Mark Pack | Published 4th December 2009 - 2:20 pm

On 6 June 1859, at Willis’s Rooms in King Street, St James, London, three groups of MPs – Radicals, Whigs and Peelites – met to formalise their parliamentary coalition to oust the Conservative government of Lord Derby and bring in a new administration under Lord Palmerston. Thus was born the first Liberal government, and the meeting in Willis’s Rooms marks the foundation of the Liberal Party.

To mark this 150th anniversary of the formation of the Liberal Party, and to commemorate the Willis’ Rooms meeting permanently, the Liberal Democrat History Group is arranging to erect a Westminster Council ‘heritage plaque’ on the current-day site, Almack House in King Street.

The cost will be approximately £1,000, so the Group is launching an appeal to meet the cost of th project.

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Leave a comment

John Stuart Mill symposium – Saturday 14 November, LSE, London

By Duncan Brack | Published 26th October 2009 - 6:40 pm

One hundred and fifty years ago, in 1859, the great Liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill published his most important and enduring work, On Liberty. Used today as the symbol of office of the President of the Liberal Democrats, On Liberty emphatically vindicated individual moral autonomy and celebrated the importance of originality and dissent. It set out the principle, still acknowledged as universal and valid today, that only the threat of harm to others can justify interfering with an individual’s liberty of action.

Mill himself was not only a philosopher, but also an economist, journalist, political writer, social reformer, and, briefly, …

Continue reading »
Posted in Events | Also tagged , , | Leave a comment

Podcast: The foundation of the Liberal Party

By Helen Duffett | Published 22nd August 2009 - 1:25 pm
150th anniversary

A little premature...

One hundred and fifty years ago, on the 6 June 1859, at Willis Rooms in St James, Westminster, Radical, Peelite and Whig Members of Parliament met to formalise their Parliamentary coalition to oust the Conservative government and finally brought about the formation of the Liberal Party.

To commemorate the compact made at Willis Rooms in 1859 and the consequent founding of the Liberal Party, the Liberal Democrat History Group and the National Liberal Club organised a joint event at the Club on …

Continue reading »
Posted in Podcasts | Also tagged , , | Leave a comment