Tag Archives: SDP

A marriage made in Portsmouth

By Mary Reid | Fri 25th November 2022 - 2:44 pm

One of our readers came across this BBC Parliament documentary about the merger of the Liberals and the Social Democrat Party in 1987-88. It was first broadcast in 2008 to mark the 20th Anniversary.

Enjoy!

Posted in News | Also tagged liberal party | 6 Comments

The future of Social Democracy: 40 years after the Limehouse Declaration

By David McKenzie | Mon 25th January 2021 - 10:02 am

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On the 25 January 1981, Roy Jenkins, Bill Rodgers, Shirley Williams and David Owen issued a joint statement signalling intent to leave the Labour party and form a new Council for Social Democracy that would later become the SDP.

Stemming from disagreements over the recent Wembley conference and an increasing far-left stranglehold from the Militant tendency, the ‘Gang of Four’ made the heart-breaking decision to leave their political home and start anew.

As I was born in 1990 the moments above are of pure historical reference to me, however, I have often felt a kinship to Jenkins, Rodgers and Williams in this regard.

I grew up in the Labour movement, I joined the party aged 15 having been a direct beneficiary of the New Labour Government in 1997 and the Lib-Lab Coalition in Holyrood. I grew up in a single income household, where my Dad worked nightshift on manufacturing lines at IBM to provide for our family. Growing up one word was always echoed by my Dad ‘Opportunity’, the chance to get on and improve your life. That’s why he went to College part-time and earned himself an HNC, moving into the office-based environment at IBM.

In 2011 my Dad was elected as the Labour MP for Inverclyde, still believing in those principles of opportunity and building people up to succeed. I was immensely proud, so proud in fact I served as his election agent in 2015.

Then in 2019 I had a decision to make. I’d been a Labour council candidate in Reading and Chaired/Founded the Fabian Devolution Committee but the party since 2015 had moved so far left, my politics hadn’t changed but the voices around me had: ‘Home ownership is wrong’ and ‘All business is evil’ are actual quotes of things I heard people say.

I moved to the Liberal Democrats, as the only party that can truly stand up for the policies and principles of Social Democracy.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged limehouse declaration and social democrats | 24 Comments

A century since the birth of Roy Jenkins

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

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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 roy jenkins | 17 Comments

Did we spend 2019 expecting a 1980s-style realignment of politics?

By Paul Walter | Tue 21st January 2020 - 9:40 am

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At conference you have all sorts of conversation and all sorts of unusual things happen. I could tell a tale or two but I am reserving them for my (never to be written) memoirs.

In September 2018, excitement in the party was high. One almost needed a brown paper bag handy to breathe into, should things get overly hyperventilatory.

The gist of the excitement was:

We have to be more relevant! There are rich people going round with large truck loads of cash, looking for somewhere to dump it.

We’ve got to be in on the conversations to set up a new centre party, otherwise we will be sidelined and irrelevant.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged Change UK | 21 Comments

Goodbye Bob, the kindest of politicians

By Andrew Page | Mon 20th January 2020 - 9:50 am

Note from the Editorial Team: This touching personal tribute to Bob Maclennan was published over the weekend on “A Scottish Liberal” – the blog of Andrew Page. We liked it so much that we asked Andrew if we could reproduce it here, and he kindly agreed.

Today I discovered that my friend, one time mentor and godfather to my daughter Xanthe has passed away at the age of 83.

Robert Maclennan, Lord Maclennan of Rogart (but always “Bob” to me) was the son of a gynaecologist (Sir Hector Maclennan) and a forward-thinking …

Posted in Obituaries | Also tagged bob maclennan, featured and merger | 3 Comments

Part 2: If we want to win elections we have to denounce austerity

By Stephen Richmond | Thu 7th March 2019 - 5:11 pm

So I was hesitant to get into ideological discussions but the argument often gets made that even if austerity is unpopular we must defend the small government “Classical Liberal” tradition. That argument needs to be answered- yes there has always been a laissez-faire strand of Liberalism, however, the idea that Liberalism only means small government and free markets is an idea that dates from around 1980.

Liberalism has a quite complicated and wide-ranging history from being initially associated with generosity (as in the word Liberality, a liberal act meant a generous one), to the alternative association of the French revolution (describing someone as a “Liberal” was an insult intended to suggest they were radical revolutionaries, there was no suggestion that Liberals were aiming for small government as such, just that they were anti-monarchist.). Liberalism went on to include large sections of the early Socialist movement, including such hailed Classical Liberals as John Stuart Mill. Early Liberalism was actually not very much to do with economics at all and was more part of the Whig and Republican movements that were about moving from a feudal system to the beginnings of democracy. (I heartily recommend Helena Rosenblatt’s ‘A forgotten history of Liberalism” for more of that story.)

It’s because of these political instincts and aims that when it became clear that unregulated markets were hurting people in the late 19th century Liberals changed policy rather than changing ideology. That’s where the social reforms of Asquith and Lloyd-George came from, leading into the Social Insurance systems of Beverage and the economic theories of Keynes. That’s how the Liberal party ended up to the left of the pre-merger SDP and how the Liberal Democrats ended up to the left of New Labour. It’s not an aberration, it’s just the natural place that Liberalism ended up.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged economic liberalism, liberal democracy, social democracy and social liberal forum | 50 Comments

LibLink: David Boyle – The Lib Dems should act decisively – and join the Independent Group now

By The Voice | Tue 26th February 2019 - 12:45 pm

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Over on the Guardian’s Comment is Free, David Boyle uses his first-hand experience of the Liberal party/SDP merger to reflect on the new situation with the Independent Group of MPs:

…this is what I believe Vince Cable should do. As soon as possible, the Lib Dems should join the Independent Group in parliament. I suggest this partly for the good of the independents. Joining the 11 Lib Dems (plus Stephen Lloyd, who resigned the whip recently, but who would surely then follow suit) would double their size and give them momentum. The new group would then be almost two-thirds of the way to becoming the third largest party (currently the SNP with 35 seats), and closer to the public funding attached for policymaking.

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged david boyle, featured, The Independent Group and vince cable | 95 Comments

Will they all froth off?

By Richard Kemp | Thu 21st February 2019 - 9:30 am

The real advantage of having been around a long time (52 years as a member and 36 as a councillor) is that you can usually say, “I’ve seen it all before”. There are two things about the emergence of the “Independent Group” which are different to the huge surge of support for the SDP when it was created. Firstly, there are no big names amongst them. Most people outside their own constituencies probably couldn’t put a name to a face if shown the magnificent 11. Secondly, this time there are splits in both the other Parties not just one.

It’s very tempting for journalists to see things only through the Westminster prism. Numbers matter there in terms of votes and majorities. Big press conferences and breakaways are good news stories but not necessarily real politics. The numbers that really matter are the numbers on the ground and in particular the number of councillors. Political Parties are very like armies. We have Colonels and Generals in Parliament. We have the poor bloody infantry who knock on the doors and stuff the envelopes. The glue that holds them together and makes sure things happen are the NCOs. In our parlance, Councillors.

Surges in membership for political parties are nothing new for a variety of reasons. In addition to the SDP we often get local surges as people support the people locally who they think might win and have influence or who, quite simply, might find them an easy seat. The SDP surge has actually been outperformed by the huge increase in Labour and to a lesser extent in the Lib Dems since 2015. But the real question is, “how many stick to actually make the Party, new or old, work?” Many of the people who will excitedly sign up when the Independent Group becomes a Party will rapidly find that politics is not very exciting at all. Much of it is necessary but boring work interspersed with the stuff they have seen on the telly. They will be like the froth on the top of a cup of coffee that quickly disappears after the fresh bre begins to cool.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged local elections | 53 Comments

Political breakaways are no easy option – a reminder of how the last one played out…

By Adrian Slade | Tue 19th February 2019 - 11:15 am

In 1981 and 1982 the Alliance between the two parties, under the leadership of Roy Jenkins and David Steel, was seen to be the perfect answer to Mrs Thatcher’s highly controversial first government, then two years old. Polls suggested that the Alliance could win power ‘if there was an election tomorrow’ as the polls liked to say, but, as many will remember, there wasn’t an election tomorrow. Instead there was the Falklands War, which Mrs Thatcher led us all into and won, thereby turning round many public perceptions of her. The Tories won the 1983 election comfortably, in the …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged liberal history | 20 Comments

Review: Turning Point: Unscripted Reflections by Steve Richards – The formation of the SDP

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 3rd June 2018 - 11:55 am

Thanks to my friend Neil for drawing this one to my attention. Steve Richards has done a series of reflections on the big turning points in our politics over the last 40 years, from the election of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister to the 2017 election.

The second in the series concerns the formation of the SDP, when 4 former Labour Cabinet ministers left Labour over that party’s adoption of an anti European, pro nuclear disarmament platform along with internal reforms that gave more power to members and trade unions.

Richards makes the important point that if you are going to form a new party, you can’t just be against stuff. You have to have an agenda. He points out that the SDP had a definite left of centre vision that involved redistribution of wealth, high public spending and definitely internationalist.

He observed that the party got masses of media coverage because they had credibility as well as novelty.

David Steel’s role in encouraging the formation of a new party rather than just having Labour people joining the Liberals was also highlighted as an early positive.

Richards says despite all of this, there were “impossible hurdles” for the party to overcome.

First of all, the Labour Party was never going to disappear. They were too well resourced.

Secondly, they didn’t attract those on the left of the Conservatives.

Posted in News | Also tagged history, steve richards and turning points | 6 Comments

Remembering the SDP

By David Warren | Tue 20th February 2018 - 1:52 pm

The events that led to the formation of the SDP were also formative years for me as a very young man becoming fascinated with politics.

I can recall Roy Jenkins giving the Dimbleby Lecture and the Labour party conference of 1980 when the left won every vote on key issues such as Europe and Defence.

Then the elevation of Michael Foot to the post of leader an election in which many had thought the moderate candidate Denis Healey would triumph.

James Callaghan had timed his resignation so that MPs would elect his successor before a conference arranged to discuss changing the method of election was held at Wembley.

Callaghan knew that the conference would adopt an electoral college system widening the franchise to include trade unions and constituency parties.

This change would give a left wing standard bearer a much better chance of winning.

Healey bungled his chances by alienating key moderates and the dye was cast. It wasn’t long before he would face a strong challenge for the deputy leadership from Tony Benn.

By then Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen and Bill Rodgers had walked out of the party taking a substantial number of MPs with them.

Posted in News | Also tagged labour | 32 Comments

350 years of Liberal history in 32 pages

By Duncan Brack | Wed 28th September 2016 - 12:25 pm

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If you want to read a short summary of the last 350 years of Liberal politics in Britain, the Liberal Democrat History Group has just the thing for you – a new edition of our booklet Liberal History: A Concise History of the Liberal Party, SDP and Liberal Democrats.

This is designed as a comprehensive but relatively short (about 10,000 words) summary of Liberal, SDP and Liberal Democrat history for readers wanting more detail than they can find on the party website, but less than a full book. We produced the booklet originally in 2005, and we’ve revised it twice since; this edition is up to date as of summer 2016.

Posted in Liberal History | Also tagged liberal democrats and liberal party | 5 Comments

Party like it’s 1981

By John Death | Sat 10th September 2016 - 11:55 am

Imagine that, alongside Michael Foot as leader, Tony Benn had won the deputy leadership of the Labour Party in 1981; it almost happened. Would the creation of the SDP then seem wrong even to Labour loyalists and even today? There is certainly a view within the Labour Party, shared with The Guardian editorial writers, that a way must be found to keep the current party together rather than face the alternative: “No one who remembers or knows about past divisions, notably the breakaway of the Social Democratic party in 1981, should want a return to that.”

The argument runs that the SDP split the Left, enabling Thatcherism to run riot in the Eighties without a strong, electable opposition. With many moderates leaving Labour, the hard Left almost triumphed and Neil Kinnock needed a monumental effort of will to turn the party around into something more, though still not quite, electable.

This line of reasoning is obviously flawed. In the Eighties, Benn did not defeat either Denis Healey for the deputy leadership or Kinnock for the leadership. Jeremy Corbyn (Foot without the charisma) and the hard Left already control the Labour Party. Good luck to Owen Smith trying to do a Kinnock, but if, as seems likely, he fails, what then? The Guardian suggests that the answer is Shadow Cabinet elections.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged 1981 and labour | 16 Comments

David Owen – remember him?

By Chris White | Fri 26th February 2016 - 4:30 pm

Some of us were members of the SDP and recall still the various reasons why this new political party was created – not least to combat the anti-European mood which then gripped Labour (the Conservatives were largely fine on the issue. The irony…)

Six years later, Owen refused to accept the will of his own Party to merge with the Liberals. He pretended for a while that the majority who joined the merged party had somehow ‘left’ the SDP and he could therefore continue as Leader of the much reduced force. He finally killed it off when it was overtaken by the Monster Raving Loony Party in a by-election in Bootle.

Since then he has floated around the political scene, with sporadic not terribly perceptive interventions on Radio 4 as a ‘former Foreign Secretary’ and the occasional advice to his imagined followers to vote this or that way in General Elections.

So it comes as no surprise that he is reduced to appearing in the Sun urging people to trash their future by voting for Brexit.

His arguments are thin to say the least. For example this insight:

Posted in News | Also tagged brexit | 28 Comments

Dick Newby writes….Limehouse at 35

By Dick Newby | Mon 25th January 2016 - 11:55 am

35 years on from the Limehouse Declaration and the launch of the SDP it’s easy to see the similarities. We have a Labour Party with a very left wing leader pushing ideologically driven policies and zero prospect of winning the next election. And we have a Conservative Party which is pursuing harsh economic policies at home and is split down the middle over the UK’s relationship with the EU.

But if there are similarities with 1981 there are even more differences. Britain is now a very different place socially and economically. It is much more ethnically diverse, particularly in the large cities. It is far less deferential and far fewer people have a strong party loyalty. It is also much more affluent – the average household is now earns twice as much as it did in 1981 – and unemployment and inflation are both much lower.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged Bill Rogers, limehouse and shirley williams | 10 Comments

Opinion: What’s in a name ?

By David Warren | Mon 6th April 2015 - 9:00 am

View image | gettyimages.com

Having recently finished reading a biography of Charles Kennedy, which covered the merger of the Liberal Party and SDP in detail, I pondered for some time on the controversy surrounding the names and philosophy of political parties.

In the late 1980s the Social and Liberal Democrats or SLD were lampooned as the Salads, the use of the shorter Democrats was unpopular because it omitted the word liberal, so we ended up with the Liberal Democrats – a title that is now long established.

If you look beyond the UK though, the confusion really begins.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged liberal democrats | 66 Comments

Ukip examined: who they are, what they stand for, and what it all means for British politics

By Stephen Tall | Mon 28th April 2014 - 8:00 am

I’ve just finished reading Revolt on the Right, Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin’s fascinating book analysing the rise of Ukip and what makes the party and its voters tick. Mark Pack has already written a very good review for LibDemVoice here. Here’s my take on some of its key insights.

Who votes for Ukip? The ‘left behind’

For a start, it debunks the myth that Ukip is a party of disaffected, well-to-do, shire-Tories obsessed by Europe and upset by David Cameron’s mild social liberalism on same-sex marriage. Yes, there are some Ukip voters like that, but they tend to be its peripheral voters, the ones most likely to give the Tories a kick in the Euros next month then return to their traditional True Blue ways in time for the general election. Ukip’s core vote in reality is made up of what the authors define as ‘left behind’ voters, overwhelmingly comprising older white working class males with no formal educational qualifications.

Posted in Books and Op-eds | Also tagged featured, Mark Pack, matthew goodwin, revolt on the right, robert ford and ukip | 85 Comments

“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 –

…

Posted in News | Also tagged bill rodgers, david owen, limehouse declaration and shirley williams | 11 Comments

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 …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged 1983 election, 1987 election, david owen, david steel and liberal party | 65 Comments

Thatcher papers show 25 Tory MPs considered joining early SDP

By Alex Foster | Sat 17th March 2012 - 4:11 pm

A number of things hit the headlines this morning as the Margaret Thatcher Foundation reveals papers from 1981.

The early morning BBC radio headlines focussed on a meeting between Thatcher and Rupert Murdoch around the time News International acquired:

Margaret Thatcher had a secret meeting with Rupert Murdoch at Chequers weeks before his 1981 purchase of the Times newspapers, newly released files show.

A note by her press secretary Bernard Ingham says the prime minister thanked Mr Murdoch for “keeping her posted”.

But the contentious issue of whether to refer the bid to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission was not raised.

But as …

Posted in LibLink and News | Also tagged counterfactuals, margaret thatcher, margaret thatcher foundation, news international and rupert murdoch | 10 Comments

Revealed: The Liberal Democrats’ new HQ

By Helen Duffett | Sat 21st May 2011 - 9:35 pm

The Liberal Democrats plan to relocate this summer to a new headquarters in Westminster, close to Whitehall and the Houses of Parliament.

The party has chosen newly-refurbished offices on the second floor at 8-10 Great George Street, opposite the Treasury.

Party staff can look forward to a modern, open-plan office on one floor, in contrast to the current Cowley Street offices – which are arranged over five floors, in an array of dolls’-house type compartments.

At around 7000 square feet, the floor area is …

Posted in News and Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged chris fox, cowley street, featured and great george street | 29 Comments

Who are the heirs of the SDP?

By Chris Nicholson | Sat 26th March 2011 - 12:53 pm

Today (March 26th) is the 30th anniversary of the founding of the SDP. To mark the occasion last Monday CentreForum organised a discussion “the Class of 81: Who are the true heirs of the SDP? with leading former SDP members, Chris Huhne , Greg Clark (Tory Decentralisation Minister) and Andrew Adonis (Labour’s former Transport and Schools Minister) on the panel. In the audience were Bill Rodgers, Shirley Williams, members of Roy Jenkins’ family, countless former SDP members as well as a good few ”political anoraks”.

It was an evening of reminiscing, “what ifs”, analysis, historical reflection and a few amusing ironies. …

Posted in Op-eds | 23 Comments

Today’s the anniversary of the Limehouse Declaration

By Mark Pack | Tue 25th January 2011 - 2:55 pm

On 25 January 1981, four senior Labour politicians – Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams – issued the Limehouse Declaration, so called after David Owen’s East London home. It set out their plans which were to result in the formation of the SDP. As you can see, many of their policy concerns are still highly relevant:

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged history | 53 Comments

Opinion: pots and kettles – names and games and a journey towards political maturity

By Ed Randall | Sun 17th October 2010 - 1:11 pm

Michael Collins, a lecturer in twentieth century British history at UCL, has predicted at Open Democracy–Tuition fees just the beginning of Lib Dem troubles that the “SDP contingent” in the Liberal Democrats faces an existential battle with “coalition Liberals” over the future of the party.

Collins’ fantasy Lib Dem politics isn’t very convincing but there are a growing number of matching accounts, which mirror his portrayal of Liberal Democrat division, include accusations of unprincipled behaviour and go on to predict the party’s demise. It seems reasonable to respond to Collins’ account of ‘Lib Dem troubles’ with a little history and …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged higher education, nick clegg, tuition fees, universities and vince cable | 17 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, roy jenkins and susan kramer | 1 Comment

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, roy jenkins, shirley williams, spitting image and torbay | 4 Comments

Are there more ex-SDP members on the Tory front-bench than the Lib Dem front-bench?

By The Voice | Fri 30th January 2009 - 6:40 pm

Danny Finkelstein asks the question over at The Times’s Comment Central here. Scores on the doors (allegedly) so far show it to be a draw…

Tory shadow cabinet ex-SDPers: Greg Clark, Chris Grayling, Andrew Lansley and David Mundell.
Lib Dem shadow cabinet ex-SDPers: Vince Cable, Chris Huhne, Tom McNally and Paul Burstow

Or can LDV readers point out more…?

Posted in Humour and News | Also tagged chris grayling, chris huhne, conservative party, danny finkelstein, lord mcnally, paul burstow and vince cable | 13 Comments

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Tag Archives: SDP

A marriage made in Portsmouth

A century since the birth of Roy Jenkins

Did we spend 2019 expecting a 1980s-style realignment of politics?

Goodbye Bob, the kindest of politicians

LibLink: David Boyle – The Lib Dems should act decisively – and join the Independent Group now

Will they all froth off?

Political breakaways are no easy option – a reminder of how the last one played out…

Review: Turning Point: Unscripted Reflections by Steve Richards – The formation of the SDP

Remembering the SDP

350 years of Liberal history in 32 pages

Party like it’s 1981

David Owen – remember him?

Dick Newby writes….Limehouse at 35

Opinion: What’s in a name ?