Tag Archives: liberal philosophy

Freedom

By Jack Meredith | Fri 11th July 2025 - 9:56 am

The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.

This is what can be found on the back of every Lib Dem membership card. The part I want to focus on in this piece is the point regarding a “fair, free and open society”. One person’s concept of freedom may differ from another’s. I would like to take this opportunity to discuss it.

Freedom is the right of an individual in this country to vote. Freedom is the right of an individual to own property. Freedom is the right of an individual, so long as they follow the law and do no harm to others, to live their life as they see fit.

Freedom is a regulated market that allows small businesses to prosper alongside multinational corporations. Freedom is empowering a community to take ownership of its energy provisions, its pubs, its community centres, and its future. Freedom is the ability to trade freely and easily with our neighbours, in Europe and the world.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged freedom | 2 Comments

Citizens Britain: a radical agenda for the 2020s

By Ian Kearns and Jon Alexander | Mon 14th December 2020 - 12:47 pm

On Saturday, the anniversary of last year’s disastrous General Election, we published a new report. Citizens’ Britain is the follow up to our previous collaboration, Winning for Britain, which was the first data-rich review of 2019. That earlier report concluded with the challenge of identifying “a distinct, progressive, liberal alternative”. Citizens’ Britain, a country where every voice is heard, and where we work together to solve the problems we face, is that alternative.

We must be honest with ourselves: liberalism itself is now under threat in this country. A year on from the General Election, the Conservative government’s approach to the pandemic and Brexit is endangering lives and livelihoods. Since his re-election, Boris Johnson and those around him have enabled nationalism and right-wing conservatism while also stifling progressive voices and ripping up the liberal institutions and frameworks that underpin our daily lives.

The mandate that Johnson and his cronies are claiming for this is rooted in a myth. The myth says people are uninterested in politics and just want government to get on with running things while they are left alone to get on with their lives. The Tories, to be clear, believe that Brexit and the hoarding of power in the central executive, at the expense of parliament, the devolved administrations, and local government, is no more than a response to the popular demand for government to ‘just get on with it’. To the extent that their governing philosophy extends beyond that, it is to say only that people should occasionally be called upon to use their consumer power to boost the economy.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged citizen rights | 11 Comments

Yellow, orange, green… time for new book, and a different approach

By Mike Tuffrey | Fri 1st March 2013 - 10:51 am

Back in 1928, publication of The Yellow Book – the report of a party inquiry “Britain’s Industrial Future” – provided the basis for Lloyd George’s 1929 general election programme “We can conquer unemployment!”. It put the party firmly in the camp of an interventionist economic strategy, with John Maynard Keynes as its intellectual lodestar. With the Great Depression ranging, the party firmly rejected laisser-faire liberalism.

Come 2004 and the Orange Book -subtitled Reclaiming Liberalism and edited by David Laws and Paul Marshall – challenged what some were calling nanny-state liberalism. It promoted choice and competition and argued that the Liberal Democrats …

Posted in Books, News and Party policy and internal matters | 8 Comments