What are the Liberal Democrats for?
Graeme Archer’s piece in the Telegraph on the Liberal Democrats is not exactly flattering to say the least. He clearly doesn’t have much time for the party and believes that if it didn’t exist no one would invent it.
Angela Harbutt commented that while not agreeing with everything, Archer has a point. Others have responded and can be read below the link Angela posted.
I suspect third parties, whatever they stand for, will always have trouble justifying their existence. After all, you can join a main party that you feel some affinity towards and then hope to persuade party members to support your views.
But what about what the Lib Dem MPs do in the Commons. Assuming that some would never join another party, because for whatever reason they feel that the Lib Dems is the only place for them, would Britain be better or worse off without them?
There is one particularly example that I think answers Graeme Archer’s question. John Hemming MP recently wrote a blog post for Halsbury’s Law Exchange. HLE is a virtual think tank that is supported by the company I work for.
It details his campaign for families who have their children taken away by local authorities. You can read the post here. As far as I know, Hemming is the only MP to take up this issue. It touches upon liberty, the law and the State.
If nothing else, taking on such a cause might be a good enough reason to invent such a party if it didn’t exist.
September 12th, 2011 at 7:15 pm
I stopped voting Liberal Democrat immediately after the 2006 Health Act was passed with more support proportionally from people abusing the word liberal than by members of any other party. This illiberal and vindictive act was the brainchild of ASH and politicians like Kevin Barron, As far as I am concerned, these are the people that our ancestors fought to save us from. I do not smoke but am embarrassed by the fact that smoking facilities are provided on airports in Germany, Austria France and The Netherlands amongst others but not in the traditionally tolerant UK. There is a place for a party espousing liberal values and promoting tolerance, the problem is that we don’t have one in the UK.