I started my blogspot at a
crucial time for the United Kingdom, indeed it was what motivated me to enter
the fascinating world of tweeting and blogging—coming from a different
generation. I cannot recall in my lifetime such a wide range of uncertainties visited
upon the people simultaneously. To list a few, but by no means all—the
seemingly endless impact of severe austerity; a doubt over whether the Union of
four nations will survive; the UKs future in Europe and the pending
Referendum; the Democratic deficit with a Tory Government that has no real
mandate across the whole of these isles and lastly, are we increasingly
experiencing the trend ‘for Wales see England’?
There are also uncertainties
facing two political parties after last May’s election, namely Labour and the
Liberal Democrats. For now I am only going to apply myself to the latter—even
though I have had a political history in the former and still a deep interest
in its response to the election outcome.
Since May, the Liberal
Democrats have been involved in a membership participation exercise, focusing
on what went wrong and of course, a leadership contest. Both have led to
interesting opinions on where we go from here—including thoughts on the party’s
name, its values and principles; what are ‘liberal’ values and where does
‘social democracy’ figure; and what is our future vision...
The outcome after five years
of coalition with the Tories has been devastation for the party. On Newsnight
last night (June 23) there was a feature on the Liberal Democrats in the South
West of England where it was suggested that some people question whether
the Liberal Democrats will even survive in the long term. I find that a naïve
and whimsical observation. Its history as well as its values and principles are
timeless.
In Under Milk Wood, Dylan
Thomas writes 'To begin in the beginning’ which often is good advice! So, as an
amateur political historian since the 1960s, I am going to run a series of
weekly video recordings from the 1980s. Now the Liberal Democrats have 17,000
new members since the election— which is phenomenal. Also very few party
members under the age of forty, if not forty five, will have much recollection
of where the Liberal Democrats came from.
The first video is a
programme presented by Vincent Kane who, in my opinion, was one of the best
political broadcasters in my lifetime. He goes to the Liberal Party
conference in Blackpool in February 1988 on the weekend they were deciding
whether to merge with the Social Democratic Party (SDP). This was a much
debated and divisive topic in both parties for a couple of years previous. So
here it is...