Tag Archives: roy jenkins

Labour’s turmoil presents the LibDems as the home for those with centre-left progressive values

By Andrew Chandler | Tue 14th May 2024 - 10:36 am

Embed from Getty Images
Quoting Labour’s Harold Wilson might stir some feathers to our LibDem audience, but amidst the political whirlwind, it’s fitting to recall our famous working man’s pipe-smoking ex-Prime Minister who seemed to be born into a trench-coat, rather than a birthday suit. His famous quip was “a week is a long time in politics.” And my goodness, what a week it has been.

We witnessed Natalie Elphicke, one of three former Conservatives who have recently joined Labour. Whilst the previous two defections might have surprised some and been welcomed by all within Labour, Elphicke’s departure was one that surprised everyone and was not welcomed by some from within Labour. Honestly, if you had asked me personally, I would have put better bets on her throwing herself into the coast in her constituency in Dover, to help toe a boat of Refugees onto British shores, than this. We are still yet to see the full political fallout of this choice accepted by Labour, given her right-wing views on immigration, culture wars, and, not too long ago, unflattering remarks she made about the Labour leadership. And this is only scratching the surface, given the comments she made about her husband’s victims that got caught up in his sexual misconduct trial and her attempts to influence it.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged Harold Wilson, keir starmer and natalie elphicke | 32 Comments

A century since the birth of Roy Jenkins

By Michael Mullaney | Tue 10th November 2020 - 9:16 am

Embed from Getty Images

The 11th of November is the 100th anniversary of the birth of a political giant who helped form the modern Liberal Democrat party.

Roy Jenkins made a huge political impact, firstly within the Labour party as a reforming Home Secretary in the 1960s bringing in reforming legislation on decriminalising homosexuality, modernising divorce laws, and liberalising censorship laws. Then as one of the four founding members of the SDP that was to merge with the Liberals to form the Liberal Democrats.

Posted in Liberal History and Op-eds | Also tagged Lib Dem History, liberal democrats and SDP | 17 Comments

A love that dare not speak its name

By David Warren | Tue 7th July 2020 - 11:16 am

On a quiet evening recently I watched the 2015 film “Carol” which is set in the 1950s and based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith.

The “Carol” of the title is a wealthy middle aged woman in a marriage that is breaking up, who has a four year-old daughter she adores. On a pre-Christmas shopping trip she meets a young shop assistant, Therese, and they have a connection. Carol’s husband, who she is divorcing, knows that she has had same sex relationships in the past and uses this as part of a custody battle – citing her ‘immoral behaviour’ to secure sole custody of their daughter.

Posted in Op-eds and TV and film | Also tagged LGBT, lynne featherstone and same sex marriage | 10 Comments

Roy was right – and so was Nick

By Douglas Oliver | Sat 14th January 2017 - 9:43 am

Nick Clegg’s excellent book, “Politics: Between the Extremes”, released in September, provides a useful perspective on the new parameters which seem to define British politics. As became clear in 2016, politics is not just a battle between right and left or statist versus anti-statist perspectives any more, but between open versus closed economies and Brexit versus Remain.

But I think Clegg’s analysis would have benefited from exploring more deeply how old and therefore un-random these changes are. Specifically, Clegg’s Twelfth Chapter Was Roy Right? suggests Roy Jenkins– who died in 2003 and in the 1980s was the leading political and intellectual force behind the SDP and Lib Dems– would not have agreed with his view of cross-party cooperation, or that the only division in politics is between left and right.

There is, in fact, plenty of evidence to suggest that Jenkins would have shared Clegg’s analysis. Indeed, I think Jenkins would have likely been his strongest supporter in the Coalition years and would have spoken against the criticisms made of Clegg, implicitly in his name, principally by Lord Oakeshott, Jenkins’ former Special Adviser, who see the Liberal Democrats as effectively a subsidiary of the wider left.

Posted in Books | Also tagged nick clegg | 19 Comments

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.

Embed from Getty Images

Posted in Photo feature | Also tagged charles kennedy, david owen, david steel, jeremy thorpe, nick clegg, paddy ashdown, sir menzies campbell and tim farron | 2 Comments

The legacy of Roy Jenkins: History Group discussion meeting Monday 27th June

By Duncan Brack | Sun 26th June 2016 - 7:25 pm

Embed from Getty Images

One of the very slight crumbs of comfort to be found in the referendum campaign was the way in which, in some parts of the country, members of the Liberal Democrats, Labour and Green parties were able to campaign together positively for a ‘remain’ vote. The 1975 referendum on membership of the European Community saw a very similar experience – with profound results for British politics thereafter.

In the happier of the UK’s two referendums on Europe, Roy Jenkins, then Home Secretary in Harold Wilson’s Labour government, led the ‘in’ campaign alongside the Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe and the new Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher. Jenkins and his pro-European Labour colleagues enjoyed the good relations he developed with the Liberals, and this helped to lay the foundations for the formation of the Social Democratic Party, and its alliance with the Liberals, six years later – and, in 1988, to the merger of the two to form our own party, the Liberal Democrats.

With bitter-sweet timing, the next Liberal Democrat History Group speaker meeting, on Monday 27 June at 7.00pm, will discuss the legacy of Roy Jenkins for liberalism in Britain. These extend beyond Europe and the formation of the SDP and the Alliance.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged liberal democrat history group | 2 Comments

David Rendel 1949-2016

By Paul Walter | Tue 17th May 2016 - 1:18 pm

As we reported earlier, former Liberal Democrat MP David Rendel has died aged 67.

David was born in 1949 in Athens, Greece. His father was a foreign correspondent for The Times, and he was a great-grandson of civil engineer Sir Alexander Meadows Rendel, and a great-great-nephew of Liberal MP Stuart Rendel, the first Baron Rendel, a benefactor of William Gladstone, as noted in Roy Jenkins’ book “Gladstone: A Biography”.

David was educated first at Horris Hill school, Newtown, Hampshire, and then as a scholar at Eton College. He spent 14 months as a volunteer teacher in Cameroon and Uganda with Voluntary Service Overseas. Afterwards he went to Magdalen College and St Cross College, Oxford where he gained a degree in Physics and Philosophy and rowed in the record-breaking Boat Race crew of 1974.

Posted in Obituaries | Also tagged david rendel, featured, obituaries, paddy ashdown and william ewart gladstone | 7 Comments

LDVideo | Election archive special… the 1980s

By Stephen Tall | Sun 21st August 2011 - 5:25 pm

Yesterday was the 1960-70s, today we fast-forward to the 1980s…

1982 Liberal Party political broadcast

(Available on YouTube here.)

1983 election: Party leaders on the campaign trail (incuding Roy Jenkins at 1:05)

Posted in YouTube | Also tagged cyril smith and david steel | 2 Comments

Who are the greatest Liberal Prime Ministers who never were?

By Stephen Tall | Sun 3rd April 2011 - 3:23 pm

Mark Pack reviewed Francis Beckett’s new counterfactual collection, The Prime Ministers Who Never Were, on the Voice earlier this week — 14 ‘Big Beasts’ who, had the chips fallen differently, might have become premiers.

The list is mostly inevitable with a couple of intriguing outsiders: Austen Chamberlain, J R Clynes, Lord Halifax, Oswald Mosley, Herbert Morrison, Hugh Gaitskell, Rab Butler, George Brown, Norman Tebbit, Michael Foot, Denis Healey, Neil Kinnock, John Smith and David Miliband.

Voice readers will notice one evident fact: there’s not a single Liberal (or SDP) name among them. In some ways it’s not that surprising. After …

Posted in Books | Also tagged david penhaligon, featured, herbert fisher, jo grimond, Mark Pack, nancy seear, paddy ashdown and shirley williams | 16 Comments

Forgotten Liberal heroes: Nancy Seear

By Mark Pack | Wed 2nd March 2011 - 10:25 am

Listen to Liberal Democrats make speeches and there are frequent references to historical figures, but drawn from a small cast. Just the quartet of John Stuart Mill, William Gladstone, David Lloyd George, David Penhaligon corner almost all of the market, especially since Bob Maclennan stopped making speeches to party conference. Some of the forgotten figures deserve their obscurity but others do not. Charles James Fox’s defence of civil liberties against a dominating government during wartime or Earl Grey’s leading of the party back into power and major constitutional reform are good examples of mostly forgotten figures who could …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged baroness barker, david rendel, featured, forgotten liberal heroes, history, john prescott, nancy seear and olly grender | 10 Comments

Daily View 2×2: 26 March 2010

By Helen Duffett | Fri 26th March 2010 - 10:52 am

Time flies – Friday already! And is it really 29 years to the day that the Gang of Four launched a new political party: the Social Democrats?

Roy Jenkins said at the launch:

We want to get away from the politics of our dated dogmatism and class confrontation. We want to release the energies of people who are fed up with the old slanging match.

Watch the video of the launch here.

2 Big Stories

Digital economy bill to be pushed through parliament next month

The controversial digital economy bill will be pushed through in the “wash-up” leading up to an election, after the government confirmed that it will receive its second reading in the Commons on 6 April – the same day that Gordon Brown is expected to seek Parliament’s dissolution.

Harriet Harman, the leader of the house, said today that the bill will get its second reading. But when questioned by Labour MPs Neil Gerrard and Tom Watson about the lack of time given to debate over controversial issues in the bill, she said only that “ministers are aware” of the strong feelings that the proposed legislation has engendered.

Posted in Daily View | Also tagged chris davies, digital economy bill, ed fordham, heathrow, mark thompson, SDP and susan kramer | 1 Comment

Aspiring Independent candidate in Chingford changes his name to “None Of The Above”

By Helen Duffett | Tue 5th January 2010 - 9:28 pm

From the Waltham Forest Guardian:

An aspiring MP has gone to extreme lengths to protest against the three main political parties.

Adam Osen, 50, has officially changed his name to None Of The Above and hopes to attract support from disillusioned voters as an independent parliamentary candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green.

The move was suggested by Mr Above’s brother, Gideon, who took the idea from the film Brewster’s Millions, which sees a character run a political campaign under the same slogan.

The former Mr Osen, a painter and decorator of Woodberry Way in Chingford, said his wife, Rebecca, 43, tried to talk him out of the move and many did not believe he would go through with it.

However, he admitted his two children, Gabrielle, 18, and Michael, 15, were less surprised as he has a reputation for coming up with “off the wall” ideas.

Mr Above, or None as he is known to friends, has lost faith in Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative parties since the MPs’ expenses scandal.

I spoke to Geoff Seeff, Liberal Democrat PPC for Chingford and Woodford Green, who said,

Posted in Election law and News | Also tagged adam osen, charles kennedy, chingford and woodford green, geoff seeff, glasgow hillhead, nicholas lyell and waltham forest guardian | 23 Comments

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.

Posted in YouTube | Also tagged bill rodgers, cheltenham, david owen, david steel, guildford, SDP, shirley williams, spitting image and torbay | 4 Comments

Dear Keir, there are other options than pandering to prejudice

Some thoughts on the brilliant Lib Dem results in the local elections

Mark Pack’s report to Members

William Wallace writes: How should liberals mark VE Day

Tag Archives: roy jenkins

Labour’s turmoil presents the LibDems as the home for those with centre-left progressive values

A century since the birth of Roy Jenkins

A love that dare not speak its name

Roy was right – and so was Nick

In pictures: Leaders from the archives

The legacy of Roy Jenkins: History Group discussion meeting Monday 27th June

David Rendel 1949-2016

LDVideo | Election archive special… the 1980s

Who are the greatest Liberal Prime Ministers who never were?

Forgotten Liberal heroes: Nancy Seear

Daily View 2×2: 26 March 2010

2 Big Stories

Aspiring Independent candidate in Chingford changes his name to “None Of The Above”

YouTube ‘cos we want to: an SDP special

Most Read

Op-eds

Recent Comments

Dear Keir, there are other options than pandering to prejudice

Some thoughts on the brilliant Lib Dem results in the local elections

Mark Pack’s report to Members

William Wallace writes: How should liberals mark VE Day

Tag Archives: roy jenkins

2 Big Stories

Subscribe

Most Read

Search

Op-eds

Recent Comments