Liberal Party
Founded	1859
Dissolved	2 March 1988
Preceded by	Whigs, Radicals, Peelites
Merged into	Social and Liberal Democrats
Ideology	Historical: Classical liberalism Modern: Liberalism, Social liberalism
International affiliation	Liberal International
Official colours	Yellow; historically orange, and before that green
Politics of the United Kingdom Political parties Elections

The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was the third largest political party throughout the latter half of the 20th century. The party moved towards social liberalism during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and came to be seen as being on the centre-left of British politics.^{[citation needed]}

It grew out of the Whig Party in 1859, and William Gladstone carried the party through governments in the late 19th century. The party split over the issue of Irish Home Rule, but returned to power in 1906 through a landslide victory. During this time in government, the Liberals are credited with the so-called Liberal Reforms, which saw the creation of a basic welfare state. During World War I, the Liberals governed Britain through a coalition with the Conservatives, which ended in 1922. In the 1920s, the Labour Party permanently replaced the Liberals as the largest opponent of the Conservative Party in British politics, and the Liberals went into decline, which culminated in them winning as few as 6 seats at general elections during the 1950s. A comeback of sorts was seen during the 1960s and 1970s, but it was not until 1981, when the Liberals allied with the newly formed SDP to form the SDP-Liberal Alliance, that the party enjoyed significant electoral success. In the 1983 general election, the alliance took 25% of the popular vote, but this only translated into 23 seats (out of a total of 650). During 1988, the Liberals formally merged with the SDP to form the Liberal Democrats, though a small splinter Liberal Party was formed in 1989 by former members opposed to the merger.

Ideology[link]

During the 19th century the Liberal Party was broadly in favour of what would today be called classical liberalism: supporting laissez-faire economic policies such as free trade and minimal government interference in the economy (this doctrine was usually termed 'Gladstonian Liberalism' after the Victorian era Liberal Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone). The Liberal Party favoured social reform, personal liberty, reducing the powers of the Crown and the Church of England (many of them were Nonconformists) and an extension of the electoral franchise. Sir William Harcourt, a prominent Liberal politician in the Victorian era, said this about liberalism in 1872:

A crowd waits outside Leeds Town Hall to see them elect a Liberal Party candidate during the 1880 general elections.

If there be any party which is more pledged than another to resist a policy of restrictive legislation, having for its object social coercion, that party is the Liberal party. (Cheers.) But liberty does not consist in making others do what you think right, (Hear, hear.) The difference between a free Government and a Government which is not free is principally this—that a Government which is not free interferes with everything it can, and a free Government interferes with nothing except what it must. A despotic Government tries to make everybody do what it wishes; a Liberal Government tries, as far as the safety of society will permit, to allow everybody to do as he wishes. It has been the tradition of the Liberal party consistently to maintain the doctrine of individual liberty. It is because they have done so that England is the place where people can do more what they please than in any other country in the world...It is this practice of allowing one set of people to dictate to another set of people what they shall do, what they shall think, what they shall drink, when they shall go to bed, what they shall buy, and where they shall buy it, what wages they shall get and how they shall spend them, against which the Liberal party have always protested.^[1]

The political terms of "modern", "progressive" or "new" Liberalism began to appear in the mid to late 1880s and became increasingly common to denote the tendency in the Liberal Party to favour an increased role for the state as more important than the classical liberal stress on self-help and freedom of choice.^[2]

By the early 20th century the Liberals stance began to shift towards "New Liberalism", what would today be called social liberalism: a belief in personal liberty with a support for government intervention to provide minimum levels of welfare.^[3] This shift was best exemplified by the Liberal government of Herbert Henry Asquith and his Chancellor David Lloyd George, whose Liberal reforms in the early 1900s created a basic welfare state.^[4]

David Lloyd George adopted a programme at the 1929 general election entitled We Can Conquer Unemployment!, although by this stage the Liberals had declined to third-party status. The Liberals now (as expressed in the Liberal Yellow Book) regarded opposition to state intervention as being a characteristic of right-wing extremists.^[5]

After nearly becoming extinct in the 1940s and 50s, the Liberal Party revived its fortunes somewhat under the leadership of Jo Grimond in the 1960s, by positioning itself as a radical centrist non-socialist alternative to the Conservative and Labour Party governments of the time.^[6]

Origins[link]

Viscount Palmerston

The Liberal Party grew out of the Whigs, which had its origins as an aristocratic faction in the reign of Charles II. The Whigs were in favour of reducing the power of The Crown and increasing the power of the Parliament. Although their motives in this were originally to gain more power for themselves, the more idealistic Whigs gradually came to support an expansion of democracy for its own sake. The great figures of reformist Whiggery were Charles James Fox (died 1806) and his disciple and successor Earl Grey. After decades in opposition the Whigs came to power under Grey in 1830 and carried the First Reform Act in 1832.

The Reform Act was the climax of Whiggery but also brought about the Whigs' demise. The admission of the middle classes to the franchise and to the House of Commons led eventually to the development of a systematic middle class liberalism and the end of Whiggery, although for many years reforming aristocrats held senior positions in the party. In the years after Grey's retirement the party was led first by Lord Melbourne, a fairly traditional Whig, and then by Lord John Russell, the son of a Duke but a crusading radical, and Lord Palmerston, a renegade Irish Tory and essentially a conservative, although capable of radical gestures.

As early as 1839 Russell had adopted the name Liberal Party, but in reality the party was a loose coalition of Whigs in the House of Lords and Radicals in the Commons. The leading Radicals were John Bright and Richard Cobden, who represented the manufacturing towns that had gained representation under the Reform Act. They favoured social reform, personal liberty, reducing the powers of the Crown and the Church of England (many of them were Nonconformists), avoidance of war and foreign alliances (which were bad for business), and above all free trade. For a century free trade was the one cause which could unite all Liberals.

In 1841 the Liberals lost office to the Conservative Party under Sir Robert Peel, but their period in opposition was short, because the Conservatives split over the repeal of the Corn Laws, a free trade issue, and a faction known as the Peelites (but not Peel himself, who died soon after), defected to the Liberal side. This allowed ministries led by Russell, Palmerston and the Peelite Lord Aberdeen to hold office for most of the 1850s and 1860s. The leading Peelite was William Ewart Gladstone, who was a reforming Chancellor of the Exchequer in most of these governments. The formal foundation of the Liberal Party is traditionally traced to 1859 and the formation of Palmerston's second government.

The Whig-Radical amalgam could not become a true modern political party, however, while it was dominated by aristocrats, and it was not until the departure of the "Two Terrible Old Men", Russell and Palmerston, that Gladstone could become the first leader of the modern Liberal Party. This was brought about by Palmerston's death in 1865 and Russell's retirement in 1868. After a brief Conservative interlude (during which the Second Reform Act was passed by agreement between the parties), Gladstone won a huge victory at the 1868 election and formed the first Liberal government. The establishment of the party as a national membership organisation came with the foundation of the National Liberal Federation in 1877.

The Gladstonian era[link]

William Gladstone

For the next thirty years Gladstone and Liberalism were synonymous. William E. Gladstone served as prime minister four times (1868–74, 1880–85, 1886, and 1892–94). His financial policies, based on the notion of balanced budgets, low taxes and laissez-faire, were suited to a developing capitalist society but could not respond effectively as economic and social conditions changed. Called the "Grand Old Man" later in life, he was always a dynamic popular orator who appealed strongly to British workers and lower middle class. The deeply religious Gladstone brought a new moral tone to politics with his evangelical sensibility and opposition to aristocracy^[7] . His moralism often angered his upper-class opponents (including Queen Victoria), and his heavy-handed control split the Liberal party.^[8][9]

In foreign policy, Gladstone was in general against foreign entanglements but did not resist the reality of imperialism. For example, he approved of the occupation of Egypt by British forces in 1882. His goal was to create a European order based on cooperation rather than conflict and mutual trust instead of rivalry and suspicion; the rule of law was to supplant the reign of force and self-interest. This Gladstonian concept of a harmonious Concert of Europe was opposed to and ultimately defeated by a Bismarckian system of manipulated alliances and antagonisms.^[10]

As prime minister 1868 to 1874 he headed a Liberal Party that was a coalition of Peelites like himself, Whigs and radicals; Gladstone was now a spokesman for "peace, economy and reform." One major achievement was the Elementary Education Act of 1870. It provided England with an adequate system of elementary schools for the first time and required attendance. He also secured the abolition of the purchase of commissions in the army, and of religious tests for admission to Oxford and Cambridge; the introduction of the secret ballot in elections; the legalization of trade unions; and the reorganization of the judiciary in the Judicature Act.^[11]

Regarding Ireland the major Liberal achievements were land reform, where he ended centuries of landlord oppression), the disestablishment of the (Anglican) Church of Ireland through the Irish Church Act 1869.

In the 1874 general election Gladstone was defeated by the Conservatives under Disraeli during a sharp economic recession. He formally resigned as Liberal leader and was succeeded by the Marquess of Hartington, but he soon changed his mind and returned to active politics. He strongly disagreed with Disraeli's pro-Ottoman foreign policy and in 1880 he conducted the first outdoor mass-election campaign in Britain, known as the Midlothian campaign. The Liberals won a large majority in the 1880 election. Hartington ceded his place and Gladstone resumed office.

Among the consequences of the Third Reform Act (1884–85) was the giving of the vote to the Catholic peasants in Ireland, and the consequent creation of an Irish Parliamentary Party led by Charles Stewart Parnell. In the 1885 general election this party won the balance of power in the House of Commons, and demanded Irish Home Rule as the price of support for a continued Gladstone ministry. Gladstone personally supported Home Rule, but a strong Liberal Unionist faction led by Joseph Chamberlain, along with the last of the Whigs, Hartington, opposed it. The Irish Home Rule bill gave all owners of Irish land a chance to sell to the state at a price equal to 20 years' purchase of the rents and allowing tenants to purchase the land. Irish nationalist reaction was mixed, Unionist opinion was hostile, and the election addresses during the 1886 election revealed English radicals to be against the bill also. Among the Liberal rank and file, several Gladstonian candidates disowned the bill, reflecting fears at the constituency level that the interests of the working people were being sacrificed to finance a rescue operation for the landed elite.^[12]

The result was a catastrophic split in the Liberal Party, and heavy defeat in the 1886 election at the hands of Lord Salisbury. There was a final weak Gladstone ministry in 1892, but it also was dependent on Irish support and failed to get Irish Home Rule through the House of Lords.

Gladstone finally retired in 1894, and his ineffectual successor, Lord Rosebery, led the party to another heavy defeat in the 1895 general election.

A major long-term consequence of the Third Reform Act was the rise of Lib-Lab candidates, in the absence of any committed Labour Party. The Act split all county constituencies (which were represented by multiple MPs) in to single-member constituencies, roughly corresponding to population patterns. In areas with working class majorities, in particular coal-mining areas, Lib-Lab candidates were popular, and they received sponsorship and endorsement from trade unions. In the first election after the Act was passed (1885), thirteen were elected, up from two in 1874. The Third Reform Act also facilitated the demise of the Whig old guard: in two-member constituencies, it was common to pair a Whig and a radical under the Liberal banner. After the Third Reform Act, fewer Whigs were selected as candidates.^[13]

The Liberal zenith[link]

Herbert Henry Asquith

The Liberals languished in opposition for a decade, while the coalition of Salisbury and Chamberlain held power. The 1890s were marred by infighting between the three principal successors to Gladstone, party leader William Harcourt, former Prime Minister Lord Rosebery, and Gladstone's personal secretary, John Morley. This intrigue finally led Harcourt and Morley to resign their positions in 1898 as they continued to be at loggerheads with Rosebery over Irish home rule and issues relating to imperialism. Replacing Harcourt as party leader was Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. Harcourt's resignation briefly muted the turmoil in the party, but the beginning of the Second Boer War soon nearly broke the party apart, with Rosebery and a circle of supporters including important future Liberal leaders H.H. Asquith, Edward Grey, and Richard Burdon Haldane forming a clique dubbed the "Liberal Imperialists" that supported the government in the prosecution of the war. On the other side, more radical members of the party formed a Pro-Boer faction that denounced the conflict and called for an immediate end to hostilities. Quickly rising to prominence among the Pro-Boers was David Lloyd George, a relatively new MP and a master of rhetoric, who took advantage of having a national stage to speak out on a controversial issue to make his name in the party. Harcourt and Morley also sided with this group, though with slightly different aims. Campbell-Bannerman tried to keep these forces together at the head of a moderate Liberal rump, but in 1901 he delivered a speech on the government's "methods of barbarism" in South Africa that pulled him further to the left and nearly tore the party in two. The party was saved after Salisbury's retirement in 1902 when his successor, Arthur Balfour, pushed a series of unpopular initiatives such as a new education bill and Joseph Chamberlain called for a new system of protectionist tariffs. Campbell-Bannerman was able to rally the party around the traditional liberal platform of free trade and land reform and led them to the greatest election victory in their history. This would prove the last time the Liberals won a majority in their own right.

Although he presided over a large majority, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was overshadowed by his ministers, most notably Herbert Henry Asquith at the Exchequer, Edward Grey at the Foreign Office, Richard Burdon Haldane at the War Office and David Lloyd George at the Board of Trade. An ill Campbell-Bannerman retired in 1908 and died later that year. He was succeeded by Asquith, who stepped up the government's radicalism. Lloyd George succeeded Asquith at the Exchequer, and was in turn succeeded at the Board of Trade by Winston Churchill, a recent defector from the Conservatives.

The Liberals pushed through much legislation, including the regulation of working hours, National Insurance and welfare. It was at this time that a political battle over the so-called People's Budget resulted in the passage of an act ending the power of the House of Lords to block legislation. The cost was high, however, as the government was required by the king to call two general elections in 1910 to validate its position and ended up frittering away most of its large majority, being left once again dependent on the Irish Nationalists.

As a result Asquith was forced to introduce a new third Home Rule bill in 1912. Since the House of Lords no longer had the power to block the bill, the Unionist's Ulster Volunteers led by Sir Edward Carson, launched a campaign of opposition that included the threat of armed resistance in Ulster and the threat of mutiny by army officers in Ireland in 1914 (see Curragh Incident). In their resistance to Home Rule the Ulster Protestants had the full support of the Conservatives, whose leader, Andrew Bonar Law, was of Ulster-Scots descent. The country seemed to be on the brink of civil war when World War I broke out in August 1914.

The war struck at the heart of everything British Liberals believed in. The party became divided over the distinctly illiberal policies that were introduced under her auspices, including conscription and the Defence of the Realm Act. Several Cabinet ministers resigned, and Asquith, the master of domestic politics, proved a poor war leader. Lloyd George and Churchill, however, were zealous supporters of the war, and gradually forced the old pacifist Liberals out. The poor British performance in the early months of the war forced Asquith to invite the Conservatives into a coalition (on 17 May 1915). This marked the end of the last all-Liberal government. This coalition fell apart at the end of 1916, when the Conservatives withdrew their support from Asquith and gave it to Lloyd George instead, who became Prime Minister at the head of a coalition government largely made up of Conservatives. Asquith and his followers moved to the opposition benches in Parliament and the Liberal Party was split once again.

Liberal decline[link]

David Lloyd George

In the 1918 general election Lloyd George, "the Man Who Won the War", led his coalition into another khaki election, and won a sweeping victory over the Asquithian Liberals and the newly emerging Labour Party. Lloyd George and the Conservative leader Andrew Bonar Law wrote a joint letter of support to candidates to indicate they were considered the official Coalition candidates – this "coupon" as it became known was issued against many sitting Liberal MPs, often to devastating effect, though not against Asquith himself. Asquith and most of his colleagues lost their seats. Lloyd George still claimed to be leading a Liberal government, but he was increasingly under the influence of the rejuvenated Conservative party. In 1922 the Conservative backbenchers rebelled against the continuation of the coalition, citing in particular the Chanak Crisis over Turkey and Lloyd George's corrupt sale of honours amongst other grievances, and Lloyd George was forced to resign. The Conservatives came back to power under Bonar Law and then Stanley Baldwin.

At the 1922 and 1923 elections the Liberals won barely a third of the vote and only a quarter of the seats in the House of Commons, as many radical voters abandoned the divided Liberals and went over to Labour. In 1922 Labour became the official opposition. A reunion of the two warring factions took place in 1923 when the new Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin committed his party to protective tariffs, causing the Liberals to reunite in support of free trade. The party gained ground in the 1923 general election but ominously made most of its gains from Conservatives whilst losing ground to Labour – a sign of the party's direction for many years to come. The party remained the third largest in the House of Commons, but the Conservatives had lost their majority. There was much speculation and fear about the prospect of a Labour government, and comparatively little about a Liberal government, even though it could have plausibly presented an experienced team of ministers compared to Labour's almost complete lack of experience, as well as offering a middle ground that could get support from both Conservatives and Labour in crucial Commons divisions. But instead of trying to force the opportunity to form a Liberal government, Asquith decided instead to allow Labour the chance of office in the belief that they would prove incompetent and this would set the stage for a revival of Liberal fortunes at Labour's expense. It was a fatal error.

Share of the vote received by Conservatives (blue), Whigs/Liberals/Liberal Democrats (orange), Labour (red) and others (grey) in general elections since 1832.^[14][15] Following success as the successor to the Whig party, the party's share of the popular vote plummeted after the First World War as it lost votes to the new Labour party and fractured into groups such as the National and Coalition Liberals.

Labour was determined to destroy the Liberals and become the sole party of the left. Ramsay MacDonald was forced into a snap election in 1924, and although his government was defeated, he achieved his objective of virtually wiping the Liberals out as many more radical voters now moved to Labour whilst moderate middle-class Liberal voters concerned about socialism moved to the Conservatives. The Liberals were reduced to a mere forty seats in Parliament, only seven of which had been won against candidates from both parties and none of these formed a coherent area of Liberal survival. The party seemed finished and during this period some Liberals, such as Churchill, went over to the Conservatives, while others went over to Labour. (Several Labour ministers of later generations, such as Michael Foot and Tony Benn, were the sons of Liberal MPs.)

Asquith died in 1928 and the enigmatic figure of Lloyd George returned to the leadership and began a drive to produce coherent policies on many key issues of the day. In the 1929 general election he made a final bid to return the Liberals to the political mainstream, with an ambitious programme of state stimulation of the economy called We Can Conquer Unemployment!, largely written for him by the Liberal economist John Maynard Keynes. The Liberals gained ground, but once again it was at the Conservatives' expense whilst also losing seats to Labour. Indeed the urban areas of the country suffering heavily from unemployment, which might have been expected to respond the most to the radical economic policies of the Liberals, instead gave the party its worst results. By contrast most of the party's seats were won either due to the absence of a candidate from one of the other parties or in rural areas on the "Celtic fringe", where local evidence suggests that economic ideas were at best peripheral to the electorate's concerns. The Liberals now found themselves with 59 members holding the balance of power in a Parliament where Labour was the largest party but lacked an overall majority. Lloyd George offered a degree of support to the Labour government in the hope of winning concessions, including a degree of electoral reform to introduce the alternative vote, but this support was to prove bitterly divisive as the Liberals increasingly divided between those seeking to gain what Liberal goals they could achieve, those who preferred a Conservative government to a Labour one and vice-versa.

The last majority Liberal Government in Britain was elected in 1906. The pre-World War I period in Britain was a period of worker strikes and civil unrest involving many violent confrontations between the police/troops, and civilians. Other "issues of the period" included the suffragettes and the Irish Independence movement. After the carnage of 1914–1918 the democratic reform of the Representation of the People Act 1918 instantly tripled the number of people allowed to vote in Britain from 7 to 21 million. The Labour Party benefited the most from this huge change in the British electorate, forming its first minority government in 1924.

The splits over the National Government[link]

Herbert Samuel

In 1931 MacDonald's government fell apart under the Great Depression, and the Liberals agreed to join his National Government, dominated by the Conservatives. Lloyd George himself was ill and did not actually join. Soon, however, the Liberals faced another divisive crisis when a National Government was proposed to fight the 1931 general election with a mandate for tariffs. From the outside, Lloyd George called for the party to abandon the government completely in defence of free trade, but only a few MPs and candidates followed. Another group under Sir John Simon then emerged, who were prepared to continue their support for the government and take the Liberal places in the Cabinet if there were resignations. The third group under Sir Herbert Samuel pressed for the parties in government to fight the election on separate platforms. In doing so the bulk of Liberals remained supporting the government, but two distinct Liberal groups had emerged within this bulk – the Liberal Nationals (officially the "National Liberals" after 1947) led by Simon, also known as "Simonites", and the "Samuelites" or "official Liberals", led by Samuel who remained as the official party. Both groups secured about 34 MPs but proceeded to diverge even further after the election, with the Liberal Nationals remaining supporters of the government throughout its life. There were to be a succession of discussions about them rejoining the Liberals, but these usually foundered on the issues of free trade and continued support for the National Government. The one significant reunification came in 1946 when the Liberal and Liberal National party organisations in London merged.

The official Liberals found themselves a tiny minority within a government committed to protectionism. Slowly they found this issue to be one they could not support. In early 1932 it was agreed to suspend the principle of collective responsibility to allow the Liberals to oppose the introduction of tariffs. Later in 1932 the Liberals resigned their ministerial posts over the introduction of the Ottawa Agreement on Imperial Preference. However, they remained sitting on the government benches supporting it in Parliament, though in the country local Liberal activists bitterly opposed the government. Finally in late 1933 the Liberals crossed the floor of the House of Commons and went into complete opposition. By this point their number of MPs was severely depleted. In the 1935 general election, just 17 Liberal MPs were elected, along with Lloyd George and three followers as "independent Liberals". Immediately after the election the two groups reunited, though Lloyd George declined to play much of a formal role in his old party. Over the next ten years there would be further defections as MPs deserted to either the Liberal Nationals or Labour. Yet there were a few recruits, such as Clement Davies, who had deserted to the National Liberals in 1931 but now returned to the party during the World War II and who would lead it after the war.

Near extinction[link]

Samuel had lost his seat in the 1935 election and the leadership of the party fell to Sir Archibald Sinclair. With many traditional domestic Liberal policies now regarded as irrelevant, he focused the party on opposition to both the rise of Fascism in Europe and the appeasement foreign policy of the British government, arguing that intervention was needed, in contrast to the Labour calls for pacifism. Despite the party's weaknesses, Sinclair gained a high profile as he sought to recall the Midlothian Campaign and once more revitalise the Liberals as the party of a strong foreign policy.

In 1940 they joined Churchill's wartime coalition government, with Sinclair serving as Secretary of State for Air, the last British Liberal to hold Cabinet rank office for seventy years. However, it was a sign of the party's lack of importance that they were not included in the War Cabinet. At the 1945 general election, Sinclair and many of his colleagues lost their seats to both Conservatives and Labour, and the party returned just 12 MPs to Westminster.^[16] But this was just the beginning of the decline. In 1950, the general election saw the Liberals return just nine MPs.^[17] Another general election was called in 1951, and the Liberals were left with just six MPs in parliament; all but one of them were aided by the fact that the Conservatives refrained from fielding candidates in those constituencies.^[18]

In 1957 this total fell to five when one of the Liberal MPs died and the subsequent by-election was lost to the Labour Party, which selected the former Liberal Deputy Leader Lady Megan Lloyd George as its own candidate. The Liberal Party seemed close to extinction. During this low period, it was often joked that Liberal MPs could hold meetings in the back of one taxi.

Liberal revival[link]

Through the 1950s and into the 1960s the Liberals survived only because a handful of constituencies in rural Scotland and Wales clung to their Liberal traditions, whilst in two English towns, Bolton and Huddersfield, local Liberals and Conservatives agreed to each contest only one of the town's two seats. Jo Grimond, for example, who became Liberal leader in 1956, was MP for the remote Orkney and Shetland islands. Under his leadership a Liberal revival began, marked by the Orpington by-election of March 1962 which was won by Eric Lubbock. There, the Liberals won a seat in the London suburbs for the first time since 1935.

The Liberals became the first of the major British political parties to advocate British membership of the European Economic Community. Grimond also sought an intellectual revival of the party, seeking to position it as a non-socialist radical alternative to the Conservative government of the day. In particular he canvassed the support of the young post-war university students and recent graduates, appealing to younger voters in a way that many of his recent predecessors had not, and asserting a new strand of Liberalism for the post-war world.

The new middle-class suburban generation began to find the Liberals' policies attractive again. Under Grimond (who retired in 1967) and his successor, Jeremy Thorpe, the Liberals regained the status of a serious third force in British politics, polling up to 20% of the vote but unable to break the duopoly of Labour and Conservative and win more than fourteen seats in the Commons. An additional problem was competition in the Liberal heartlands in Scotland and Wales from the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru who both grew as electoral forces from the 1960s onwards. Although Emlyn Hooson held on to the seat of Montgomeryshire, upon Clement Davies death in 1962, the party lost its other Welsh five Welsh seats between 1950 and 1966. In September 1966 the Welsh Liberal Party formed their own state party, moving the Liberal Party into a fully federal structure.^[19]

In local elections Liverpool remained a Liberal stronghold, with the party taking the plurality of seats on the elections to the new Liverpool Metropolitan Borough Council in 1973. In the February 1974 general election the Conservative government of Edward Heath won a plurality of votes cast, but the Labour Party gained a plurality of seats due to the Ulster Unionist MPs refusing to support the Conservatives after the Northern Ireland Sunningdale Agreement. The Liberals now held the balance of power in the Commons. Conservatives offered Thorpe the Home Office if he would join a coalition government with Heath. Thorpe was personally in favour of it, but the party insisted on a clear government commitment to introducing proportional representation and a change of Prime Minister. The former was unacceptable to Heath's Cabinet and the latter to Heath personally, so the talks collapsed. Instead a minority Labour government was formed under Harold Wilson but with no formal support from Thorpe. In the October 1974 general election the Liberals slipped back slightly and the Labour government won a wafer-thin majority.

Thorpe was subsequently forced to resign after allegations about his private life. The party's new leader, David Steel, negotiated the Lib-Lab pact with Wilson's successor as Prime Minister, James Callaghan. According to this pact, the Liberals would support the government in crucial votes in exchange for some influence over policy. The agreement lasted from 1977 to 1978, but proved mostly fruitless, for two reasons: the Liberals' key demand of proportional representation was rejected by most Labour MPs, whilst the contacts between Liberal spokespersons and Labour ministers often proved detrimental, such as between finance spokesperson John Pardoe and Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey, who were mutually antagonistic.

Alliance with Social Democrats[link]

When the Labour government fell in 1979, the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher won a victory which served to push the Liberals back into the margins.

In 1981, defectors from the moderate wing of the Labour Party, led by former Cabinet ministers Roy Jenkins, David Owen and Shirley Williams, founded the Social Democratic Party. The new party and the Liberals quickly formed an alliance, which for a while polled as high as 50% in the opinion polls and appeared capable of winning the next general election. However, they were later overtaken in the polls by the Conservatives and at the 1983 general election the Conservatives triumphed by a landslide, with Labour once again forming the opposition, while the SDP-Liberal Alliance came close to Labour in terms of votes (a share of more than 25%) although it only had 23 MPs compared to Labour's 209.

The 1987 election saw the Alliance's share of the votes drop slightly and it now had 22 MP's, and in the election's aftermath Liberal leader David Steel proposed a merged of the two parties. Most SDP members voted in favour of the merger, but SDP leader David Owen objected and continued to lead a "rump" SDP, with the merger of the two parties being completed in March 1988 to form the Social and Liberal Democrats, becoming the Liberal Democrats in October 1989.^[20]

Merger with Social Democrats[link]

In 1988 the Liberals and Social Democrats merged to create what came to be called the Liberal Democrats. Over two-thirds of the members, and all the serving MPs, of the Liberal Party joined this party, led first jointly by Steel and the SDP leader Robert Maclennan, and later by Paddy Ashdown (1988–99), Charles Kennedy (1999–2006), Sir Menzies Campbell (2006–07) and Nick Clegg (incumbent).

Though the merger process was traumatic and the new party suffered a few years of extremely poor poll results, it gradually found much greater electoral success than the Liberal Party had done in the post-war era. In the 2005 general election, the Liberal Democrats elected 62 MPs to the House of Commons, a far cry from the days when the Liberals had just 5 MPs and Liberalism as a political force had seemed moribund.

As was the case with the Liberal Party for most of the 20th century, the Liberal Democrats face constant questioning about which of the other two parties they are closer to, in particular about which they would support in the event of a hung parliament. The party is keen to maintain its independent identity however, and argues that the need for a modern Liberal force in British politics has never been greater.

In the 2010 General Election, the Conservative Party won more seats than any other, but not enough to form a majority government. After several days of negotiation, the Liberal Democrats agreed to join the Conservatives as part of a coalition government.

The post-1988 Liberal Party[link]

A group of Liberal opponents of the merger with the Social Democrats, including Michael Meadowcroft (formerly Liberal MP for Leeds West) and Paul Wiggin (who served on Peterborough City Council as a Liberal), continued under the old name of "the Liberal Party". This was legally a new organisation (the headquarters, records, assets and debts of the old party were inherited by the Liberal Democrats), but its constitution asserts it to be the same Liberal party. The party retains influence in some local councils. Meadowcroft himself eventually joined the Liberal Democrats in 2007.

National Liberal Party[link]

In 1931 a number of Liberal MPs split from the original Liberal Party in protest at the leadership's adherence to free trade. The party was reformed in 2006 by the political think tank the Third Way under the name 'National Liberal Party'.^[21]

Liberal leaders 1859–1988[link]

Liberal Leaders in the House of Lords, 1859–1988[link]

• Granville George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville 1859–1865
• John Russell, 1st Earl Russell 1865–1868
• Granville George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville 1868–1891
• John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley 1891–1894
• Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery 1894–1896
• John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley 1896–1902
• John Spencer, 5th Earl Spencer 1902–1905
• George Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon 1905–1908
• Robert Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe 1908–1923
• Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon 1923–1924
• William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp 1924–1931
• Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading 1931–1936
• Robert Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe 1936–1944
• Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel 1944–1955
• Philip Rea, 2nd Baron Rea 1955–1967
• Frank Byers, Baron Byers 1967–1984
• Beatrice Seear, Baroness Seear 1984–1988

Liberal Leaders in the House of Commons, 1859–1916[link]

• Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston 1859–1865
• William Ewart Gladstone 1865–1875
• Spencer Compton Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington 1875–1880
• William Ewart Gladstone 1880–1894
• Sir William Vernon Harcourt 1894–1898
• Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman 1899–1908
• Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith (1925) 1908–1916

Leaders of the Liberal Party, 1916–1988[link]

• Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith (1925) 1916–1926
  • Donald Maclean, Acting Leader 1919–1920
• David Lloyd George 1926–1931
• Sir Herbert Samuel 1931–1935
• Sir Archibald Sinclair 1935–1945
• Clement Davies 1945–1956
• Jo Grimond 1956–1967
• Jeremy Thorpe 1967–1976
• Jo Grimond 1976 (Acting Leader)
• David Steel 1976–1988

Deputy Leaders of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons[link]

• Herbert Samuel 1929–1931
• Archibald Sinclair 1931–1935
• Post vacant 1935–1945
• Percy Harris 1940–1945
• Post vacant 1945–1949
• Megan Lloyd George 1949–1951
• Post vacant 1951–1962
• Donald Wade 1962–1964
• Post vacant 1964–1979
• John Pardoe 1976–1979
• Post vacant 1979–1985
• Alan Beith 1985–1988

Deputy Leaders of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords[link]

• Eric Drummond, 16th Earl of Perth 1946–1951
• Walter Layton, 1st Baron Layton 1952–1955
• Post vacant 1955–1965
• Gladwyn Jebb, 1st Baron Gladwyn 1965–1988

See also[link]

• Category:Liberal MPs (UK)
• List of Liberal Party (UK) MPs
• Contributions to liberal theory
• Liberalism worldwide
• List of liberal parties
• Liberal democracy
• Liberalism in the United Kingdom
• List of United Kingdom Liberal Party Leaders
• List of Liberal Chief Whips
• President of the Liberal Party
• Politics of the United Kingdom
• Liberalism
• List of liberal theorists
• List of UK Liberal Party general election manifestos

Notes[link]

References[link]

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2007)

• Chris Cook, A Short History of the Liberal Party, 1900–2001 (6th edition). Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002. ISBN 0-333-91838-X.
• Jonathan Parry, The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain. Yale, 1993.ISBN 0-300-06718-6.
• David Dutton, A History of the Liberal Party in the 20th Century, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. ISBN 0-333-74656-2.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Liberal Party (UK)

• Liberal Democrat History Group
• Catalogue of the Liberal Party papers (mostly dating from after 1945) at LSE Archives

Rob Wheway is a British politician and member of the Liberal Party. He was President of that party during 2009-2010, and is currently a member of its National Executive Council.

From 2004 to 2008 Mr Wheway was a Liberal councillor on Wyre Forest District Council, representing the Broadwaters ward.^[1]

References[link]

The Right Honourable Nick Clegg MP
Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Incumbent
Assumed office 11 May 2010
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Prime Minister	David Cameron
Preceded by	John Prescott[a]
Lord President of the Council
Incumbent
Assumed office 11 May 2010
Prime Minister	David Cameron
Preceded by	The Lord Mandelson
Leader of the Liberal Democrats
Incumbent
Assumed office 18 December 2007
Deputy	Vince Cable Simon Hughes
Preceded by	Vince Cable (Acting)
Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesman
In office 2 March 2006 – 18 December 2007
Leader	Menzies Campbell
Preceded by	Mark Oaten
Succeeded by	Chris Huhne
Member of Parliament for Sheffield Hallam
Incumbent
Assumed office 5 May 2005
Preceded by	Richard Allan
Member of the European Parliament for East Midlands
In office 10 June 1999 – 10 June 2004
Preceded by	Constituency established
Succeeded by	Bill Newton Dunn
Majority	15,284 (29.9%)
Personal details
Born	Nicholas William Peter Clegg (1967-01-07) 7 January 1967 (age 45) Chalfont St Giles, England
Political party	Liberal Democrats
Spouse(s)	Miriam González Durántez (2000–present)
Children	3 sons
Alma mater	Robinson College, Cambridge University of Minnesota, Twin Cities College of Europe
Website	nickclegg.com nickclegg.org.uk
a. ^ Office vacant from 27 June 2007 – 11 May 2010

Nicholas William Peter "Nick" Clegg (born 7 January 1967) is the British Liberal Democrat Leader since 2007 and currently the Deputy Prime Minister and Lord President of the Council (with special responsibility for political and constitutional reform) in the coalition government^[1] of which David Cameron is the Prime Minister. Clegg has been the Leader of the Liberal Democrats since 2007, and a Member of Parliament (MP) representing Sheffield Hallam since 2005. He was previously a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and an award winning journalist for the Financial Times.^[2]

Clegg was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election and became the Liberal Democrats' Home Affairs spokesperson in 2006. Clegg became Deputy Prime Minister following the 2010 general election, when the Liberal Democrats formed a coalition government with the Conservative Party. As well as his parliamentary roles, Clegg has contributed to many pamphlets and books on political issues. He has also had a large number of jobs, including being a skiing instructor and working in the office of a bank in Helsinki.

Clegg attended the University of Cambridge, the University of Minnesota, and the College of Europe in Belgium. He speaks fluent English, Dutch, and Spanish. He is married to Miriam González Durántez and has three sons.

Early life and family[link]

Clegg was born in 1967 in Chalfont St Giles in Buckinghamshire. He is the third of four children of Nicholas P. Clegg CBE, the chairman of United Trust Bank,^[3] and a former trustee of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation^[4] (where Ken Clarke was an adviser^[5]). On his father's side of the family Clegg is related to Kira von Engelhardt, daughter of a Russian baron of German, Polish, and Ukrainian origin, Ignaty Zakrevsky, an attorney general of the Imperial Russian senate,^[6] the writer Moura Budberg,^[7] and his English grandfather Hugh Anthony Clegg, editor of the British Medical Journal for 35 years.^[8]

Clegg's Dutch mother, Hermance van den Wall Bake,^[9] was interned, along with her family, by the Japanese military in Batavia (Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). She met Clegg's father during a visit to England in 1956,^[8] and they married on 1 August 1959.^[10]

Clegg is multilingual: he speaks English, Dutch, and Spanish.^[11][12][13] His background has informed his politics. He says, "There is simply not a shred of racism in me, as a person whose whole family is formed by flight from persecution, from different people in different generations. It’s what I am. It’s one of the reasons I am a liberal."^[14] His Dutch mother instilled in him "a degree of scepticism about the entrenched class configurations in British society".^[15]

Education[link]

Clegg was educated at two independent schools: at Caldicott School in Farnham Royal in South Buckinghamshire, where he was joint Head Prefect in 1980,^{[16][17][18][19]} and later at Westminster School in Central London. As a 16-year-old exchange student in Munich, he and a friend drunkenly set fire to what he called "the leading collection of cacti in Germany". When news of the incident was reported during his time as Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Clegg said he had behaved "appallingly, irresponsibly, criminally",^[20] and that he was "not proud" of it.^[21] He was arrested but not formally charged, but performed a kind of community service.^[22]

He spent a gap year working as a skiing instructor in Austria, before going on to Cambridge University in 1986, where he studied Archaeology and Anthropology at Robinson College.^[23] He was active in the student theatre at Cambridge, acting alongside Helena Bonham Carter in a play about AIDS under director Sam Mendes.^[23][24][25] He was also captain of his college's tennis team, and campaigned for the human rights organisation Survival International.^[26] Clegg spent the summer of 1989 as an office junior in Postipankki bank in Helsinki.^[27]

It has been alleged that Clegg joined the Cambridge University Conservative Association between 1986 and 1987. However Clegg has maintained he has "no recollection of that whatsoever" of joining the association.^{[28][29][30][31][32]}

After university, he was awarded a scholarship to study for a year at the University of Minnesota, where he wrote a thesis on the political philosophy of the Deep Green movement. He then moved to New York City, where he worked as an intern under Christopher Hitchens at The Nation, a progressive liberal magazine, where he fact checked Hitchens' articles.^[33][33][34]

Clegg next moved to Brussels, where he worked alongside Guy Spier for six months as a trainee in the G24 co-ordination unit which delivered aid to the countries of the former Soviet Union. After the internship he took a second master's degree at the College of Europe in Bruges, a university for European studies in Belgium, where he met his wife, Miriam González Durántez, a lawyer and the daughter of a Spanish senator.^[25] Nick Clegg is an alumnus of the "Mozart Promotion" (1991–92) of the College of Europe.^[35]

Careers outside politics[link]

Between 1992–1993, he was employed by GJW, which lobbied on behalf of Libya.^[36][37]

In 1993, Clegg won the Financial Times' David Thomas Prize, in remembrance of an FT journalist killed on assignment in Kuwait in 1991. Clegg was the award's first recipient. He was later sent to Hungary, where he wrote articles about the mass privatisation of industries in the former communist bloc.^[25]

In April 1994, he took up a post at the European Commission, working in the TACIS aid programme to the former Soviet Union. For two years he was responsible for developing direct aid programmes in Central Asia and the Caucasus, worth €50 million. He was involved in negotiations with Russia on airline overflight rights, and launched a conference in Tashkent in 1993 that founded TRACECA—an international transport programme for the development of a Transport Corridor for Europe, the Caucasus and Asia. Vice President and Trade Commissioner Leon Brittan then offered Clegg a job in his private office, as a European Union policy adviser and speech writer. As part of this role, Clegg was in charge of the EC negotiating team on Chinese and Russian accession talks to the World Trade Organisation.^[25]

Written publications[link]

Clegg has written extensively, publishing and contributing to a large number of pamphlets and books. With Dr Richard Grayson he wrote a book in 2002 about the importance of devolution in secondary education systems, based on comparative research across Europe. The final conclusions included the idea of pupil premiums so that children from poorer backgrounds receive the additional resources their educational needs require.

He wrote a controversial pamphlet for the Centre for European Reform advocating devolution and evolution of the European Union, and contributed to the 2004 Orange Book, where he offered market liberal solutions for reform of European institutions.^[38] He co-authored a pamphlet with Duncan Brack arguing for a wholesale reform of world trade rules to allow room for a greater emphasis on development, internationally binding environmental treaties, and parliamentary democracy within the WTO system.

Member of the European Parliament (1999–2004)[link]

Clegg was selected as the lead Liberal Democrat euro-candidate for the East Midlands in 1998, and was first tipped as a politician to watch by Paddy Ashdown in 1999.^[39] On his election in 1999, he was the first Liberal parliamentarian elected in the East Midlands since Ernest Pickering was elected MP for Leicester West in 1931, and was credited with helping to significantly boost the Liberal Democrat poll rating in the region in the six months after his election. Clegg worked extensively during his time as an MEP to support the party in the region, not least in Chesterfield where Paul Holmes was elected as MP in 2001. Clegg helped persuade Conservative MEP Bill Newton Dunn to defect to the Liberal Democrats, with Newton Dunn subsequently succeeding him as MEP for the East Midlands.^[40]

As an MEP, Clegg co-founded the Campaign for Parliamentary Reform, which led calls for reforms to expenses, transparency and accountability in the European Parliament.^[41] He was made Trade and Industry spokesman for the European Liberal Democrat and Reform group (ELDR).^[42] In December 2000, Nick Clegg became the Parliament's Draftsman on a complex new EU telecoms law relating to "local loop unbundling"—opening-up telephone networks across Europe to competition.^[43] Clegg decided to leave Brussels in 2002, arguing in an article in The Guardian newspaper that the battle to persuade the public of the benefits of Europe was being fought at home, not in Brussels.^[44]

In 2004 Nick Clegg MEP explained to the Select Committee on European Union Sixteenth Report that the aim of MEPs like himself, who had been active in the debate on the EU's negotiating mandate, was to obtain the right to ratify any major WTO deal entered into by the European Union.^[45] The same year Clegg chaired a policy working group for the Liberal Democrats on the Third Age, which focused on the importance of ending the cliff-edge of retirement and providing greater opportunities for older people to remain active beyond retirement. The group developed initial proposals on transforming post offices to help them survive as community hubs, in particular for older people. He served on Charles Kennedy's policy review, "Meeting the Challenge", and the "It's About Freedom" working parties.

Whilst an MEP Clegg, for four years, wrote a fortnightly column for Guardian Unlimited. One particular article in 2002 accused Gordon Brown of encouraging "condescension" towards Germany. In an article, Clegg wrote that "all nations have a cross to bear, and none more so than Germany with its memories of Nazism. But the British cross is more insidious still. A misplaced sense of superiority, sustained by delusions of grandeur and a tenacious obsession with the last war, is much harder to shake off".^[46][47] The article was dusted down during the 2010 General Election campaign when the Daily Mail interpreted the article as being a "Nazi slur on Britain" and Clegg had begun to feel the full heat of the British tabloid press following his success during the first Leaders debate.^[48]

Parliamentary candidate[link]

On leaving the European Parliament, Clegg joined political lobbying firm GPlus in April 2004 as a fifth partner:^[49]

Clegg worked on GPlus clients including The Hertz Corporation and British Gas.^[50]

In November 2004, then Sheffield Hallam MP Richard Allan announced his intention to stand down from parliament, Clegg was selected as the candidate for Sheffield Hallam constituency. He took up a part-time teaching position in the politics department of the University of Sheffield, combining it with ongoing EU consultancy work with GPlus. He also gave a series of seminar lectures in the International Relations Department of the University of Cambridge.

Member of Parliament (2005–present)[link]

Clegg worked closely with Allan throughout the campaign in Sheffield Hallam – including starring in a local pantomime – and won the seat in the 2005 general election with over 50% of the vote, and a majority of 8,682.^[51] This result represents one of the smallest swings away from a party in a seat where an existing MP has been succeeded by a newcomer (4.3%) – see Sheffield constituency article. Clegg also campaigned locally on local transport, recycling, housing development and health. He established close links with both of the city's universities and opposed the closure of local services including fire stations and post offices. Before becoming Leader of the party in 2007 he also served as treasurer and secretary of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on National Parks, a particular interest given that his constituency includes part of the Peak District National Park.^[52]

Following his election to parliament, Clegg was promoted by Leader Charles Kennedy to be the party's spokesperson on Europe, focusing on the party's preparations for an expected referendum on the European constitution and acting as deputy to Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Menzies Campbell. Clegg's ability to articulate liberal values at a very practical level quickly lent him prominence, with many already seeing him as a future Liberal Democrat Leader. Following the resignation of Charles Kennedy on 7 January 2006, Clegg was touted as a possible leadership contender.^[53] He was quick to rule himself out however instead declaring his support for Sir Menzies Campbell ahead of his former colleague in the European Parliament Chris Huhne,^[54] with Campbell going on to win the ballot.

Clegg had been a signatory to the letter circulated by Vince Cable prior to Charles Kennedy's resignation, which stated his opposition to working under Kennedy's continued leadership.^[55] Some commentators claim that Clegg's support was due to a hope that he would then inherit the leadership when Campbell's age eventually forced him to retire – the so-called rule that "young cardinals elect old popes".^[56]

Liberal Democrats' Home Affairs spokesperson[link]

After the 2006 leadership election, Clegg was promoted to be Home Affairs spokesperson, replacing Mark Oaten. In this job he spearheaded the Liberal Democrats' defence of civil liberties, proposing a Freedom Bill to repeal what he described as "unnecessary and illiberal legislation",^[57] campaigning against Identity Cards and the retention of innocent people's DNA, and arguing against excessive counter-terrorism legislation. He has campaigned for prison reform, a liberal approach to immigration, and defended the Human Rights Act against ongoing attacks from across the political spectrum. In January 2007, Clegg launched the 'We Can Cut Crime!' campaign, "proposing real action at a national level and acting to cut crime where the Liberal Democrats are in power locally".^[58]

Sir Menzies Campbell's resignation[link]

Clegg caused a degree of controversy when at the Liberal Democrat party conference in 2007 he admitted his leadership ambitions to journalists at a fringe event.^[59] The admission followed a period of increased media speculation about Sir Menzies Campbell's leadership, which the admission by Clegg did nothing to reduce and resulted in a rebuke by some of his frontbench colleagues.^[60] This followed a report from the Daily Mirror's Kevin Macguire that Clegg had failed to hide his disloyalty to Campbell's leadership.^[61] Eventually on 15 October 2007 Campbell resigned saying that questions about his leadership were "getting in the way of further progress by the party".^[62]

Leader of the Liberal Democrats (2007–present)[link]

Election to the leadership[link]

Clegg at Cardiff University

After the resignation of Campbell, Clegg was regarded by much of the media as front-runner in the leadership election.^[63][64][65] The BBC's Political Editor Nick Robinson stated the election would be a two-horse race between Clegg and Chris Huhne who had stood against Campbell in the 2006 election.^[66] On Friday 19 October 2007, Clegg launched his bid to become leader of the Liberal Democrats.^[67] Clegg and Huhne clashed in the campaign over Trident but were largely in agreement on many other issues. It was announced on 18 December that he had won.^[68] Clegg was appointed to the Privy Council on 30 January 2008 and affirmed his membership on 12 March 2008.

In his acceptance speech upon winning the leadership contest, Clegg declared himself to be "a liberal by temperament, by instinct and by upbringing" and that he believes "Britain [is] a place of tolerance and pluralism". He has stated that he feels "a profound antagonism for prejudice of all sorts".^[15] He declared his priorities as: defending civil liberties; devolving the running of public services to parents, pupils and patients; and protecting the environment.^[69]

In an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live on the morning after his election to the leadership, Clegg stated that he does not believe in God, but that he has great respect for people of faith.^[70][71] In 2010, Clegg elaborated on this question, stating "I was asked... one of those questions where you're only allowed to answer "yes" or "no",... I was asked "Do you believe in God?" As it happens I do not know whether God exists. I'm much more of an agnostic."^[72]

Clegg campaigning in Bournemouth

[edit] GQ magazine interview

Clegg's rocky start to the role was exacerbated in March 2008 when GQ magazine ran with an interview conducted by Piers Morgan in which Clegg admitted to sleeping with "no more than 30" women.^[73] Senior Lib Dem MPs defended his comments; Lembit Öpik said it showed "you can be a human being and a party Leader", and Norman Lamb that "Nick tries to be absolutely straight in everything that he does, and that might sometimes get him into trouble but he will build a reputation for being honest and straightforward."^[74] Speaking to the BBC about the interview Clegg said "wisdom with hindsight is an easy thing" as what had been a split second response had been "taken out of context, interpreted, over interpreted and so on".^[75]

Relationships with the frontbench[link]

Upon his election Clegg appointed leadership rival Chris Huhne as his replacement as Home Affairs spokesperson and following his strong performances as acting party Leader, Vince Cable was retained as the main Treasury spokesperson. Media commentators noted that the Clegg-Huhne-Cable triumvirate provided the Liberal Democrats with an effective political team for the coming years.^[76] On 5 March 2008 Clegg suffered a real test following the resignation of 3 of his front bench team. David Heath, Alistair Carmichael and Tim Farron had been told to abstain in the vote for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty but had wanted to vote in favour and so defied the whip. In addition to the three frontbenchers a further 12 more backbench Libdem MP's also defied the whip and voted "yes". Seen as an initial test to his authority Clegg said "though we have disagreed on this issue I fully understand and respect their strongly held views on the subject.... However, as they have recognised, the shadow cabinet cannot operate effectively unless the principle of collective responsibility is maintained."^[77] The resignations happened not long after the Common's Speaker Michael Martin on 26 February 2008 had blocked calls by the Liberal Democrats for an "in or out" referendum on Britain's EU membership. The Speaker's authority was called into question when, led by Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrats marched out of the House of Commons, calling the Speaker's decision a constitutional "outrage". Just moments before, frontbench foreign affairs spokesman for the party Ed Davey had been expelled from the chamber by the Speaker's deputy Sir Michael Lord for further challenging the ruling.^[78] In November 2008 Clegg suffered more allegations of difficulties with the front bench following an article in the Daily Mirror which reported that Clegg had criticised senior members of his front bench whilst on a plane journey.^[79] He attempted to play down the report saying to the BBC's Politics Show that "a lot of it is, frankly, fiction".^[80]

Attitudes to other parties[link]

In the Commons Clegg initially concentrated most of his fire on Labour and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, but in the autumn of 2009 began also focusing on Conservative leader David Cameron and the Conservatives.^[82] Clegg rejected an appeal from Cameron for their two parties to work together.^[83] Clegg argued that the Conservatives were totally different from his party, and that the Lib Dems were the true "progressives" in UK politics.^[83] At the 2009 party conference in Bournemouth he accused the Conservatives of "simply believing it is their turn" and claimed that come the election the "choice before people is the choice between fake, phoney change from David Cameron's Conservatives, and real change the Liberal Democrats offer".

Parliamentary expenses[link]

Clegg with David Cameron, and Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Chris Huhne.

Clegg became the first party Leader in modern political history to call for a Speaker to resign following his handling of the expenses scandal, describing Michael Martin, the Speaker at the time, as a defender of the status quo and obstacle to the reform of Parliament.^[25][84]

In response to revelations about MPs' expenses, Clegg set out his plans for reform of Parliament in The Guardian.^[85] Speaking about the plans, he said: "let us bar the gates of Westminster and stop MPs leaving for their summer holidays until this crisis has been sorted out, and every nook and cranny of our political system has been reformed." He argued for the "reinvention of British politics" within 100 days, calling for a commitment to accept the Kelly expenses report in full; the power to recall members suspended for misconduct; House of Lords reform; reform of party funding; fixed-term parliaments; enabling legislation for a referendum on AV+; and changes to House of Commons procedure to reduce executive power.^[86]

Shortly ahead of the election, Clegg was asked about his own expenses by Andrew Neil of the BBC. Clegg allegedly claimed the full amount permissible under the Additional Cost Allowance, including claims for food, gardening and redecorating his second home. The Telegraph also said Clegg claimed £80 for international call charges, a claim he said he would repay.^[87]

Policies[link]

Clegg's platform for the Liberal Democrats has been to modernise the party at the same time as maintaining its traditions of political and philosophical Liberalism. Since becoming Leader he has called for more choice for patients on waiting lists in the National Health Service (NHS), giving them the option to go private and to be funded by the NHS if they wish; a substantial tax cut in order to "put more money back into the pockets of people", better action on the environment, the abandonment of Britain's Trident missile defence system, fixed-term parliaments; devolving more power to local councils; giving constituents the power to force a by-election if their MP was found responsible for serious wrongdoing and a slimming of government across the board.^[88] Clegg campaigned to cut spending on defence projects such as Eurofighter as well as the UK Trident programme.^[89] In terms of public spending Clegg, at the party's 2009 conference in Bournemouth, argued that there needed to be "savage" spending cuts and said politicians need to treat voters "like grown ups" whilst accusing the Labour and Conservative parties of indulging in "childish games" over the "c-word".^[90]

Gurkha campaign[link]

Nick Clegg being presented a Gurkha Hat, by a Gurkha veteran during his Maidstone visit, to celebrate the success of their joint campaign for the right to live in Britain, 2009.

On 29 April 2009 a motion in the House of Commons by the Liberal Democrats that all Gurkhas be offered an equal right of residence resulted in a defeat for the Government by 267 votes to 246. It was the only first day motion defeat for a government since 1978. On speaking about the result Clegg said "this is an immense victory [...] for the rights of Gurkhas who have been waiting so long for justice, a victory for Parliament, a victory for decency." He added that it was "the kind of thing people want this country to do".^[91] On 21 May 2009, the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced that all Gurkha veterans who retired before 1997 with at least four years service would be allowed to settle in the UK. The actress and daughter of Gurkha corps major James Lumley, Joanna Lumley, who had highlighted the treatment of the Gurkhas and campaigned for their rights, commented: "This is the welcome we have always longed to give".^[92]

Deputy Prime Minister (2010–present)[link]

Clegg became Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Lord President of the Council on 11 May 2010 through a coalition with the Conservative Party under Prime Minister David Cameron.^[1][93][94] He has also been made Minister for Constitutional and Political Reform, which was a key point for the Liberal Democrats during the creation of the coalition and it will be his responsibility to work on this.

The Coalition Agreement[link]

The morning after the 2010 General Election presented the country with no one political party able to form a government that would command a majority in the House of Commons. In light of this reality the Conservative Leader David Cameron went public and gave a “big, open and comprehensive offer” to the Lib Dem Leader and said that he wanted to open up negotiations with the Liberal Democrats to form Britain's first coalition government since the second world war. Replying Clegg said that he had always maintained that the party with the most seats and the most votes should have the right to seek to govern. Speaking to the press he said “It seems this morning that it is the Conservative Party which has more votes and more seats – although not an absolute majority – which is why I now think that it is the Conservative Party which should seek to govern in the national interest."^[95] Following the announcement teams of negotiators from both parties formulated what would become the 'Coalition Agreement' which would form the basis of their partnership together.^[96] Gordon Brown's resignation on 11 May 2010 meant that Cameron was invited by the Queen to form a government^[97] and a coalition with the Liberal Democrats was agreed with Nick Clegg as the Deputy Prime Minister.^[98]

Plans for electoral reform[link]

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill[link]

On 5 July 2010 Clegg unveiled plans to have fewer MPs and to hold a referendum on the voting system so that the next General Election would be contested under the Alternative Vote system. In a statement, he said UK democracy was "fractured", with some votes counting more than others. As part of the statement he also changed initial plans requiring the number of MPs needed to vote to dissolve Parliament from 55% to 66%. The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill was presented to parliament on 22 July 2010 for its first reading which if successful would see the date of the referendum on changing the voting system from the current 'first past the post' system to the Alternative Vote (AV) system set for 5 May 2011.^[99][100] The bill also introduced plans to reduce the number of MP's in the House of Commons from 650 to 600 something which the Labour party attacked as gerrymandering as in order to do this there would need to be boundary changes. Clegg told MPs: "Together, these proposals help correct the deep unfairness in the way we hold elections in this country. Under the current set-up, votes count more in some parts of the country than others, and millions feel that their votes don't count at all. Elections are won and lost in a small minority of seats. We have a fractured democracy, where some people's votes count and other people's votes don't count."^[100] On 22 July 2010 the question for the referendum on AV was published asking voters if they wish to "adopt the 'alternative vote' system instead of the current 'first past the post' system" for electing MPs". The question required a yes or no answer.^[101] The Act received Royal Assent on 16 February 2011. The result of the referendum was that the alternative vote proposal was defeated by a margin of 2:1.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill[link]

Clegg also confirmed that the government planned to introduce legislation for five-year fixed-term parliaments, with elections to be held on the first Thursday in May of the fifth year after the previous general election, starting with 7 May 2015. The corresponding bill was presented to parliament on 22 July 2010 and the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 received Royal Assent on 15 September 2011.

Prime Minister's Questions[link]

Nick Clegg with the Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte on 15 November 2010

On 21 July 2010, Clegg became the first Liberal Democrat Leader to answer for Prime Minister's Questions.^[102] He courted controversy during the exchange when at the despatch box he attacked the shadow justice secretary Jack Straw for the decision to invade Iraq saying "perhaps one day you could account for your role in the most disastrous decision of all, which is the illegal invasion of Iraq." Despite having long held views about the issue, the comment was controversial, as it did not reflect the policy of the government which was that the legality of the war in Iraq was currently being studied by the Iraq inquiry.^[103] Clegg next stepped in for prime minister's questions on 8 September 2010 following the news that David Cameron's father had taken very ill. Standing in for the Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman, Jack Straw, this time challenged Clegg on the allegations of phone hacking against Downing Street's director of communications Andy Coulson. Responding, Clegg claimed that the allegations dating from Coulson's time at the News of the World were a matter for the police to investigate.^[104] On 10 November 2010, as David Cameron was making a trade visit to China, Clegg deputised for the third time, meeting Harriet Harman across the despatch box. On a day that coincided with violent student protests against tuition fees in London, the Labour deputy leader chose the same subject to quiz Clegg, accusing him of a U-turn on pledges made before the election. Responding, Clegg accused Harman of trying to re-position the Labour party as the party of students when the party had previously campaigned against fees only to end up introducing them.^[105]

Tuition fees[link]

On 12 October 2010, a review by Lord Browne into future university funding set up by the previous Labour government was announced and its findings supported by Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Business Secretary. The issue of student financing had been considered one of the flagship policies of the Liberal Democrats with all of the party's MPs, including Nick Clegg, signing the Vote for Students pledge to oppose any increase in student tuition fees prior to the election.^[106] The Browne Review however recommended that the present cap on student fees be lifted, potentially paving the way for universities to charge much higher fees in the future.^[107] Although as part of the coalition agreement the Lib Dems had gained the right to abstain on any vote relating to the increase of tuition fees, a number of the party's MPs, including former Leader Sir Menzies Campbell, said that they would have to oppose any potential rise. Clegg himself said that he would "understand" if any of his MPs felt that they could not back the review but urged them to look at all the facts before making up their minds. Expecting a rebellion, Clegg also wrote to his MPs saying that he had "struggled endlessly" with the issue and said that departing from the pledge he had made prior to the election would be "one of the most difficult decisions of my political career". Defending recommendations of the review, Clegg said that poorer students would pay less and wealthier students would pay more. He also announced that the income level at which students needed to earn before beginning to pay off their student loan would rise from £15,000 to £21,000.^[108] On 24 October 2010 Clegg told the BBC's Andrew Marr that despite the recommendations of the Browne review, the government was still considering its response. He told Marr that the government wanted to take the "best" from Browne in order to build a system that was fairer to poorer students but which would also give universities the funding boost they would need. During the interview Clegg also said that he regretted his not being able to keep his pre-election policy to scrap tuition fees but claimed that this was a result of the financial situation the country had found itself in. When pressed he also intimated that some form of cap on tuition fees would remain despite the recommendations of the report, which said that universities should be able to set their own fees.^[109]

Student protests[link]

On 10 November 2010 students staged a series of marches to demonstrate against the proposed increase in the upper limit of what is it possible for a university to charge for tuition fees. The demonstrations in London turned sour after a group of protesters attacked the Conservative party headquarters, smashing windows and eventually getting onto the roof. The National Union of Students, who had staged the protests, condemned the violence as "despicable" with union president Aaron Porter saying "this was not part of our plan".^[110] Speaking about the protests Nick Clegg, who had come under particular attack from the students during the demonstrations, said that the violence had "been generated by a very small number of people who had behaved utterly unacceptably". He also said that he "regretted" signing a pledge to vote against tuition fees increase before the election and said "in politics just as in life, you sometimes discover there are things that you wanted to do that you are not able to do.... We have had to forge a different policy because of the compromises of coalition, because of the financial situation.... But I hope that when people look at the details of what we are doing, they will see it is really, and it lowers the burden on the vast majority of students".^[111] On 24 November 2010 further protests from students took place with many students walking out of lessons to join the demonstration. Although the violence was not on the scale of the previous protest there were still 32 arrests with 17 people injured. Protesters in London had this time intended to demonstrate outside the Liberal Democrat headquarters with students once again accusing the party's Leaders of promising to vote against any increase in fee rises. Speaking on Radio 2 Clegg said "I hate in politics, as in life, to make promises that you then find you can't keep. We made a promise we can't deliver—we didn't win the election outright and there are compromises in coalition". Universities minister David Willetts meanwhile said that the students seemed not to have understood the proposal on tuition fees saying "young people will be provided with the funds they need to meet whatever charges universities levy".^[112]

Fairness premium[link]

On 14 October 2010 Clegg delivered a speech at a school in Chesterfield, at which he announced the governments intention to spend £7 billion on a 'fairness premium' designed to see extra support going to the poorest pupils over the course of the parliament. Clegg claimed that the funds for the scheme would be "additional" to the current education budget and this view was backed up by a Number 10 aide who when interviewed by The Guardian said "the money for this will come from outside the education budget. We're not just rearranging furniture – this is real new money from elsewhere in Whitehall."^[113] The package announced would provide 15 hours a week free nursery education for the poorest two year olds and a 'pupil premium' which would be given to schools to help those pupils eligible for free school meals worth £2.5 billion a year.^[114] The announcement by Clegg ensured that two elements of the government's 'Coalition Agreement' had been fulfilled, that of the promise to support free nursery care to pre-school children and that of funding a 'significant premium for disadvantaged pupils from outside the schools budget by reductions in spending elsewhere'.^[115] For Clegg the announcement was an important one politically coming two days after the publication of the Browne Review into the future of university funding which signalled the reversal of the long cherished Liberal Democrat policy of opposing any increase in tuition fees.^[116] The pupil premium announcement was important as it formed one of the four key 'priorities' on which the party had fought the last election.^[117] On 20 October the plans for the 'fairness premium' were introduced by the Treasury as part of the spending review which said that the money would be introduced over the period of the review which "will support the poorest in the early years and at every stage of their education".^[118]

Bank shares[link]

In June 2011 Clegg proposed that more than 46 million people would be handed shares in Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group under the “people’s bank” plan. The plans propose that ordinary voters would be able to profit from any increase in the value of their shares once the Treasury has recouped taxpayers’ money used for the bail-out – an offer that could eventually be worth up to £1,000 to householders. Clegg said that it was “psychologically immensely important” for people to be given a stake in the banks in the wake of the financial crisis. “Their money has been used to the tune of billions and billions and billions to keep the British banking system on a life-support system,” he said. The taxpayer owns 84 per cent of RBS and 43 per cent of Lloyds after the Government spent £65.8 billion buying shares at the height of the financial crisis. The share price of both banks has fallen sharply since the bail-out.^[119] However, aides close to David Cameron and George Osborne warned that the Liberal Democrat scheme could cost £250 million to establish and would prove an “administrative nightmare”. However Stephen Williams said "We are absolutely convinced it (standard privatisation) would not be cheaper, we are absolutely convinced of that."^[120] A Downing Street spokesman said that the Liberal Democrat plan was “an option”. “The Treasury has said it is going to look at all the options and this will be one of those options,” the spokesman said. “We will be driven by making sure that we deliver the best value for the taxpayer.” The Treasury also played down the likelihood of the proposal becoming reality. A source said Mr Osborne was “happy to listen to ideas” but the “issue doesn’t currently arise”.^[121]

Electoral performance and standing in the polls[link]

Standing in the polls[link]

Since Clegg became Leader, the polls have been mixed, though the Liberal Democrats occasionally poll above 20 points^[122] averaging around 19%.^[123] In May 2009, the party overtook Labour in an opinion poll (25% vs 22%) for the first time since the days of its predecessor, the SDP–Liberal Alliance, in 1987.^[124] Clegg thus became the first Liberal Democrat Leader to out-poll Labour in an opinion poll. After Clegg's performance in the first of three general election debates on 15 April 2010, there was an unprecedented surge of media attention and support for the Liberal Democrats in opinion polls. Comres reported the Liberal Democrats polled 24% on the day,^[125] and on 20 April in a YouGov poll, the Liberal Democrats were on 34%, 1 point above the Conservatives, with Labour in third place on 28%.^[126] Following the formation of the coalition support for the Liberal Democrats has fallen.^[127] A poll on 8 December 2010, the eve of a House of Commons vote on changes in the funding of higher education, an opinion poll conducted by YouGov recorded voting intention figures of Conservatives 41%, Labour 41%, Other Parties 11% and Liberal Democrats 8%,^[128] the lowest level of support recorded for the Liberal Democrats in any opinion poll since September 1990.^[129]

Parliamentary by-elections[link]

Five parliamentary by-elections have been held during Clegg's leadership prior to the 2010 General Election. At Crewe and Nantwich the party's share of the vote decreased by 4%. In the subsequent Henley by-election the party achieved a 1.8% increase in their vote. At the Norwich North by-election the party came third with a 2.2% fall in their vote share. The two Scottish by-elections, Glenrothes and Glasgow East, saw decreases in the Liberal Democrat vote, 8% and 10% respectively.

Local elections[link]

The local election results for the Liberal Democrats during the same period have been mixed. In the 2008 Local Elections the Liberal Democrats took second place with 25% of the vote making a net gain of 34 councillors and took control of Sheffield City Council,^[130] but their share of the vote was down 1%. The next year the Liberal Democrats gained Bristol but lost both Somerset and Devon producing a net loss of councils and a net loss of one councillor.^[131] The party however did increase its share of the vote by 3% to 28% beating the Labour Party into third place. In the European Parliament elections held on the same day, the Liberal Democrats gained a seat but had a slight decrease in their share of the vote, staying in 4th place compared to the previous European elections, behind the two main parties and UKIP.^[132]

London elections[link]

In the 2008 London Assembly elections the Liberal Democrats were the only one of the three main parties to see a decrease in their share of the vote, and in the mayoral election the Liberal Democrat candidate Brian Paddick came third again with a decreased share of the vote.

2010 general election[link]

At the 2010 general election, the Liberal Democrats won 23% of the vote, an improvement of 1%, however they only won 57 seats, 5 fewer than in 2005. No political party had an overall majority, resulting in the nation's first hung parliament since February 1974.^[133] Talks between David Cameron, the Conservative Party leader, and Clegg led to an agreed Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition, enabling the Queen to invite Cameron to form a government.

2011 local, Scottish and Welsh elections[link]

A year following the formation of the Coalition Clegg's Liberal Democrats faced poor results in the local elections. In Scotland the party lost all its mainland constituency seats, holding only the Shetland and Orkney islands. Their constituency vote share also fell from 16% to just 8%^[134] In the Welsh elections the party held just one of its 3 constituency seats, that of Welsh Leader Kirsty Williams, but gained a regional seat.^[135] In the English local elections, the Lib Dems lost over 700 councillors, and slumped from 25% to just 17% in the share of the local council vote.^[136]

In the AV referendum, the Yes vote, supported by the Liberal Democrats, was defeated by 67.9% to 32.1%. In the face of the election results, Clegg told the BBC that Liberal Democrats must "get up, dust ourselves down and move on".^[137]

Personal life[link]

Clegg with his wife Miriam holding their son Miguel on 23 February 2009

In 2000 Clegg married Miriam González Durántez, from Valladolid, Spain. They have three sons: Antonio, Alberto and Miguel,^[138][139] who are being brought up bilingually in Spanish and English.^[140] He has said that "The most important things in my life are my three young children: I’m besotted by them".^[140] The family were affected by the air travel disruption caused by the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull when the three brothers were grounded in Spain.^[141] His wife is a Roman Catholic and they are bringing up their children as Catholics; nevertheless, Clegg has stated that he does not believe in God.^[25][142] On 16 September 2010 during Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United Kingdom, Clegg attended the State reception in the grounds of Holyrood Palace and was introduced to the Pope by Queen Elizabeth II.^[143]

Clegg lives close to the Peak District and often walks with his wife near Stanage Edge, which he describes as "one of the most romantic places in the world".^[144] He also has a house in Parkfields, a street in Putney, South West London.^[145] Downing Street has announced that Clegg and the Foreign Secretary William Hague will share use of Chevening, which is typically the official country residence of the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom.^[146] When he appeared on Desert Island Discs in Oct 2010, his choice of discs included Johnny Cash, Prince and Radiohead and his luxury was a "stash of cigarettes".^[147] In an interview in April 2011 Clegg stated he dealt with the pressures of political office by reading novels late at night and he "cries regularly to music".^[148] Clegg's wealth is estimated at £1.9 million.^[149]

Styles[link]

• Nick Clegg MEP (1999–2004)
• Nick Clegg MP (2005–2008)
• The Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP (2008–present)

See also[link]

• United Kingdom coalition government 2010 to present

References[link]