Tag Archives: david owen

Michael Mullaney

The future of Social Democracy – a book to mark 40 years since the Limehouse Declaration

By Michael Mullaney | Tue 17th November 2020 - 10:54 am

Embed from Getty Images

January 25th marks the 40th Anniversary of the Limehouse Declaration, when four former Labour Cabinet Ministers Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams met to issue a statement that would shortly afterwards lead to the formation of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

The SDP in alliance with the Liberal Party took 26% of the vote in the 1983 election and 23% of the vote in the 1987 election, two of our highest general election vote shares since the 1920s. The bulk of the SDP then merged with the Liberal Party in 1988 to go on to form the Liberal Democrat party we know today.

To mark this occasion the Social Democrat Group have arranged for the publication of a book of essays called The Future of Social Democracy.

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Paul Walter

In pictures: Leaders from the archives

By Paul Walter | Thu 6th October 2016 - 11:10 am

Just delving about in the Getty Images archive, I happened upon these great images of our current leader and some of our past leaders*. Please click on the images to read the captions.

* includes predecessor parties.

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Posted in Photo feature | Also tagged , , , , , , and | 2 Comments
Helen Duffett

“It was a tough battle” – Shirley Williams on the birth of the SDP

By Helen Duffett | Thu 29th November 2012 - 4:17 pm

Shirley Williams tells the story of the 1981 Gang of Four breakaway, which eventually led to the formation of the Liberal Democrats, in the first issue of AD LIB magazine, out next week.

“…we said, if we haven’t got anywhere else to go, we’ll create one.”

Those nascent views crystallised after the party’s 1981 Wembley conference which committed it to unilateral nuclear disarmament and withdrawal from the EEC and NATO. Within hours Williams, Owen and Rodgers were drawing up the plans which would lead to the creation of the SDP.

“The three of us met – not Roy, at that point –

…

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Stephen Tall

Do the Lib Dems have a core vote, and can we grow it?

By Stephen Tall | Wed 18th July 2012 - 10:45 am

Is it possible to build a bigger Lib Dem core vote? Mark Pack has previously written here on the need for the party to adopt a ‘core vote’ strategy to protect the party from the adverse headwinds of the next election. I don’t disagree with the aim, I’m just not sure of its realism. Here’s why.

What do we mean by a ‘core vote’?

First, let’s define what’s meant by a ‘core vote’: voters who identify with the party and stick with it through the bad times as well as the good. Traditionally this identification has tended to be class-based: working-class …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 49 Comments
David Allen

Opinion: Why are we waiting?

By David Allen | Thu 12th April 2012 - 2:55 pm

We have played the waiting game before. It didn’t work in the 1980s, and it won’t work now.

In the 1983 Election, the Alliance reached a high water mark with a 26% vote. But there was discord. The Liberals, who won most seats, felt they should take the lead. The SDP, with their heavyweight experience, saw things differently. Problems grew when Owen took over, refused to collaborate properly, and set out to undermine theAlliancefrom within. A stalemate developed, and a waiting game began.

The Alliance announced to a stunned public that two-headed leadership was the new future. Their slogan “Not Left, Not …

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Andrew Jones

Opinion: The Flawed Logic of No to AV, Yes to PR

By Andrew Jones | Tue 5th April 2011 - 11:28 am

As a supporter and campaigner for a Yes vote in the referendum on the 5th of May, I have often faced the argument that, “I support a proportional system, but AV is not proportional, so I will be voting No”. A prima facie logical argument – if you do not like AV, then why on earth would you vote for it? Big names in the world of electoral reform have signed up to this “No to AV, Yes to PR” ethos, including Lord David Owen, one of the Gang of Four. According to the No to AV, Yes to …

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Chris Rennard

Chris Rennard writes… Why David Owen is wrong on the AV referendum

By Chris Rennard | Mon 14th March 2011 - 12:41 pm

David Owen chose the weekend of the Lib Dem Conference to offer his advice for the AV referendum. Having attacked the ‘First Past the Post’ voting system so vociferously for many years, it may seem odd to some people that he now urges support for this system on May 5th. He says that he hopes for a referendum with an option of a Proportional Representation system instead.

Almost all those people who have consistently supported the cause of electoral reform for much longer than he has take a different view. It is very clear that voting against change on May …

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Stephen Tall

David Owen: Lib Dems should “campaign for a role in a government of national unity”

By Stephen Tall | Fri 16th October 2009 - 9:55 am

To be a fair, a former Labour minister, ex-SDP leader and Tory voter is probably the natural person to advocate a national unity government – and that’s exactly what David Owen has done today in an article in The Times:

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, and his deputy, Vince Cable, need to position themselves as ready to shoulder the burden of responsibility for hard economic choices, and help to provide, with one of the big parties, the principled, practical government that the country so sorely needs. That means talking to voters about participating in a government of national unity.

The

…

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Stephen Tall

YouTube ‘cos we want to: an SDP special

By Stephen Tall | Sat 1st August 2009 - 8:00 am

If the SDP had lived on*, 2009 would have marked its 18th** 28th birthday – which spurious segue is all the excuse we need to dust off three video clips tracing its rise and fall.

Let’s begin at the beginning, with the explosion of the ‘Gang of Four’ – Roy, David, Shirley and Bill – onto the scene, here holding their first press conference in March 1981:

For a year or more it really did seem as if the SDP might truly break the mould of British politics. But the party was shattered by the results of the June 1983 general election, winning only six seats. Here’s the start of the BBC’s election night results programme.

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Posted in YouTube | Also tagged , , , , , , , and | 4 Comments
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