The Liberal Democrats, often shortened to Lib Dems, are a centrist political party in the United Kingdom, formed in 1988 by a merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party. The two parties had formed the electoral SDP-Liberal Alliance for seven years before then. The party’s leader is Nick Clegg.
The Lib Dems are the third-largest party in the UK Parliament, behind Labour and the Conservatives. There are 63 Lib Dem Members of Parliament (MPs) – 62 were elected at the 2005 general election, and one in the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election, 2006. The Scottish Liberal Democrats formed a coalition Scottish Executive with Labour in the first two sessions of the Scottish Parliament, and the Welsh party were in a coalition with Labour in the National Assembly for Wales from 2001 to 2003.
Promoting social liberalism, Lib Dems seek to minimise state intervention in personal affairs: they oppose what they call the ‘nanny state’. Their president’s book of office is John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, which defined the harm principle of law. While objecting to state limitations of individual rights, they favour a welfare state that provides for the necessities and amenities of life.
They support multilateral foreign policy; they opposed British participation in the War in Iraq and supported the withdrawal of troops from the country, and are the most pro-European Union of the three main parties in the UK. The party has strong environmentalist values – favouring renewable energy and commitments to deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Since their foundation, Lib Dems have advocated electoral reform to use proportional representation, replacing the House of Lords with an elected chamber, and cutting government departments.
From:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Democrats
Also see Liberal Democrats Policies Debate for discussion on specific Liberal Democrat Policies. For a Liberal Democrat Party discussion not covered below feel free to create your own forum topic at Liberal Democrat Party Forum.
Please use the comment form below to describe why you will or will not be voting Liberal Democrat Party at the 2010 General Election.
As a labour supporter, I find myself planning to change to the Lib Dems and even I’m surprised!
I have read through the manifestos and find I agree with a larger chunk of the liberal manifesto than with either of the other two.
Gosh! I never thought I would change my vote!
i do not think the lib dems should win the genral election i despise david camaron gordon brown for the win the lib dems are going to cut the dole and ema do not vote for them and this is coming from a 12 year old hes just pretending that he will get us out of the resstion hes just lieing if you vote for him then well your an idot gordon broiwn your doing a great job !
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daisy is a dick butt
I’m voting for the Lib Dems instead of labour, because of their opposition to the Digital Economy Bill (#DEBill), which is a very dangerous bill which threatens us with disconnection from the internet, and national web censorship.
They also will propose a bill to reverse all of the police ‘terrorism’ laws, introduced to have more control over the population. These laws take away fundamental rights, and are often used to suppress demonstrations of free speech.
That is why I’m voting Lib Dem. I am usually a Labour supporter, and prefer Gordon Brown, but I’m voting in an attempt to take us away from a V for Vendetta future.
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The best reason not to vote Lib Dem is their mantra in relation to proportional representation. If voting patterns in the EU election were followed the BNP would secure 45 seats in the Commons. In a hung parliament that is a significant powerbase which would skew certain policies towards the far right – it would have to otherwise the voting block would not suupport the leading party. The Lib Dems have singly refused to answer this question. (EU election 7% o vote with 1.2Million, equates to 45 out of 635 seats)
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“If voting patterns in the EU election were followed the BNP would secure 45 seats in the Commons”
Although I share your concerns about proportional representation I can’t see the voting public still voting for parties like the BNP unless they actually agree with the BNP ideas, so less likely for a wasted protest vote on the BNP under the single transferable vote which is what the Lib Dems want.
Also STV doesn’t share seats by popular vote countrywide, so the BNP could gain 5% of the popular vote countrywide and still not gain a single MP. To gain an MP a candidate still need a fair % of the vote or at best a lot of voters listing them as their second and maybe third choice.
Basically if every area gave the BNP 5%, their vote wouldn’t be enough to gain a seat and their votes would be shared to other candidates (2nd choice) with more than 5% of the vote.
Biggest concern regarding the BNP is in areas where they might gain over 10% of the vote, like with the EU elections they might scrape through a few MPs.
A handful of BNP MPs will have no real power in government.
David
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Ah ha!
So it’s only PR if it works for one party, but not for others… this exposes the selfishness of the so-called “PR” crew.
In truly proportional representation, every voting bloc must be represented in the parliamentary outcome. That is why I do not consider any of the transferable voting systems to be proportional at all, just “modified majoritarian”.
The LibDems and their supporters should either go for full and complete proportionality, or work with first-past-the-post and stop whingeing. Even the US president is elected by electoral college state-by-state, which can yield occasional perverse outcomes. So what? the system is mostly fair, and virtually always decisive.
Give me government by the many (Tory or whoever with most seats) over pop-idol by the few any day of the week.
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This time last year, I was looking forward to having a vote on electrical reform and was then massively in favour of change.
However since seeing that Nick Clegg persuaded your party to do a deal with the Conservatives just because they had secured the largest number of seats in the election when I had reasonable expectations that you would have had your party align itself with Labour with whom your party had much more in common as seen in the three televised leaders’ discussions.
You really let down yourselves and the people who voted for your policies by tying yourselves into negotiating with the party who secured the most seats rather than dealing with the party that would have seen your party achieve much more of its election agenda.
It would be very foolish for people to now vote for electrical reform which is likely to leave your party in a similar circumstance more often but it would have been a fantastic idea had Nick Clegg and your party shown, on this initial occasion that policies highlighted in those three televised discussions were of utmost concern in all your negotiations.
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I have to admit I was all for the AV system before the coalition government, it’s not the best system, but better than first past the post voting system.
However, the way the Lib Dems have betrayed their voters (I voted Labour, but my second choice would have been Lib Dems) is really putting me off rewarding the Lib dems by voting yes in the AV vote!
I thought a Labour/Lib Dems coalition government would have been a good thing because I’ve always seen the Lib Dems as not power hungry (you don’t become a Lib dem for power :-)), but the Lib Dems appear to be as corrupt and power hungry as the other parties, very disappointing.
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nw dis country is goin 2 change go gve urz vote 2 da liberal democrate a fink without mr clegg we can b stll stuk in recession gud luk mr cleggg
i dont know whether to vote for lib dems or conservative – frankly i think they are all a bunch of liars!