Liberal Democrats (UK)
What is considered "centrist" in other countries is stereotypically considered "left-wing" in the USA.
-
Let's write "commie" instead then, so readers would know in what context to read it...
Anyway, this wikipedia does not exist for the exclusive benefit of an American audience. And the Nextel ringtones Liberal Democrats (UK)/LibDems do occupy (traditionally at least) the centrist niche in the British political spectrum (with Labour to their left, and the Conservatives to their right).
Herman (who thinks 'left-wing', 'centrist' and 'right-wing' are rather meaningless indicators anyway)
Shouldn't this title just be changed to just Liberal Democrats? Lets remove the "British" part altogther as the party isn't reffered to as that. Abbey Diaz User:Greg Godwin/Greg Godwin
:For the record, it was changed from ''British Liberal Democrats'' to ''Liberal Democrats (UK)'' after discussion in what is now Free ringtones Talk:The Labour Party (UK). ''Liberal Democrats'' is a redirect to here at the moment. Majo Mills User:Rbrwr/rbrwr
Seen elsewhere on WP: '' He's a Liberal Democrat. WP doesn't explain their ideology, but assuming from the name, it's not a racist, homophobic crap-party? (No idea) '' I think this means we should give a rough summary of their policies over the years to give an idea. One to mention might be the "1p extra on income tax to p[ay for education" from a general election past. Mosquito ringtone Tarquin/Tarquin 09:31 20 Jun 2003 ~
:I've made a start. Sabrina Martins User:Rbrwr/rbrwr
:http://www.libdems.org.uk/documents/policies/Policy_Papers/LiberalDemocracy.pdf will probably be useful for this (I'm mainly putting this here for my own refence when I get around to it, not trying to push anyone into using it)...
:Nextel ringtones Jdforrester/James F. 22:33 21 Jun 2003
:
I have made some changes to the policy section to reflect the latest party policies. If there are any other Liberal Democrat party members on Wikipedia do they have any other suggestions as to what our most important policies are?
I have not mentioned opposition to the war in Iraq because it seems too much like "current events".
At some point I might write a more detailed account of post-merger history and put it up as a separate article.
Abbey Diaz User:JMonroe/Jonathan Monroe
I don't think we should refer to the lib dem spokespeople as a "shadow cabinet". Shadow cabinet only refers to the official opposition, as far as I know. Free ringtones Secretlondon/Secretlondon 00:44, Jan 1, 2004
:See [http://www.parliament.uk/directories/hciolists/libdems.cfm], which I take as oh, reasonably authoritative ;) They've only recently started calling it that, though. Majo Mills Morwen/Morwen 00:46, Jan 1, 2004
I will be doing some work on the LibDem page, as well as creating some new relevant pages. I will attempt to explain libdem ideology a bit.
- a liberal
Does it strike anybody that this article is totally POV in a way that Cingular Ringtones Labour Party (UK) and them scott Conservative Party (UK) are not? 23:58, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
:Better now (I think) 02:27, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Does Liberal stuff belong here
An awful lot of stuff on this page is about the Liberal Party and duplicates the standing it Liberal Party (UK)/Liberal Party article. The Liberal Party was a seperate party so I'm not sure if this stuff belongs here.
Whoever wrote this seems to assume that the Lib Dems are basically the Liberal Party with a different name, ignoring the Social Democratic imput to the party caused by the merger with the SDP. rather strong G-Man/G-Man 17:34, 2 May 2004
the Lib Dems see themselves as part of the Liberal tradition and the SDP's philosophical contribution has kind-of submerged. I am slightly concerned about the duplication tho (this page is better on some material and Liberal Party is better on others). Arguably the history should go on the Liberal Party page. The counter-argument is that Lib Dems are keen to emphasise the continuation of the Liberal tradition in spite of the name change.
mild pace The Land/The Land 09:10, 3 May 2004
:I think all the detailed history should definitely be merged into the Liberal Party article, where it clearly belongs, with a summary here (perhaps a couple of decent-sized paragraphs) and a clear link saying something like "''for full information, see figure efforts The Liberal Party (UK)''". It could also mention something of the social democratic heritage that comes ultimately from the Labour Party. This page should concentrate on the post-1988 party. I don't promise that I'll have time to do it, though. confused an User:Rbrwr/rbrwrbroad national User talk:Rbrwr/ˆ
: fine by me and will help though no promises to do it all either. Hopefully we weil lend up with clearer presentation of what the Lib Dems are about. Anyone else's views? advanced double The Land/The Land 11:36, 3 May 2004
The Lib Dems and NI
I am rewriting this edit:
''The Liberal Democrats, in common with the other major UK Politics parties, do not organise directly in less talked Northern Ireland, however they do work closely with the industry clinton Alliance Party of Northern Ireland.''
This isn't true. The Lib Dems do organise in NI, but do not ''contest'' elecions. According to Nicholas Whyte (a former APNI candidate (to the you kid Northern Ireland Forum and former APNI elecions official):
''They'' [The Ulster Liberal Party] ''remain active as the NI branch of the Liberal Democrats but have a policy of not contesting elections as long as Alliance remains a more credible liberal force.'' [http://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/gparties.htm]
I have rewritten it this way:
'''The Liberal Democrats, like the the do The Conservative Party (UK)/Conservatives, organise in for socioeconomic Northern Ireland. However, unlike the Tories, the Lib Dems have chosen not to contest elections in the province. Instead, they have opted to work closely with the bollinger he Alliance Party of Northern Ireland.'''
players backgrounds Hoshie/iHoshie 03:09, 4 Jul 2004
:I can see where you are coming from on this, but I feel it now over-plays the position. The word ''organise'' suggests that LDs pro-actively seek or support membership in that part of the UK. They don't. If you check with [http://www.libdems.org.uk/index.cfm/page.main/section.people] you will see that there is no State Party for NI, nor is there are NI element to the Federal party. The LDs support the Alliance, indeed David Ford occasionally visits the Cowley Street head office of the LibDems, but any members of the LDs in NI tend to be 'ex-pats' from the rest of the UK sfaiaa. underbelly a VampWillow/VampWillow 07:12, 5 Jul 2004
Left, right and centre
'''What do left, right and centre mean?'''
I don't know anything more about British politics than what is published in the Canadian media or on the internet. This article is full of lots of great information about the Liberal Democrats (who I knew nothing about). I also don't know anything about left, right and centre.
Well, I do because those terms are used frequently here in Canada. The words probably have different meaning on opposite sides of the Atlantic, but that's not my problem.
The range of differences between political ideologies is wide and complex. Political ideologies have dogmas on property, economy, social relations, the way we get around, get off and get dressed.
What is left and what is right? On some issues if you go far enough in either direction you get to the same place. Government interference, for example is hated by hardcore "right wingers" and by anarchists alike.
The point I'm trying to make is that the differences between ideologies are too complex to be described by a one dimensional plane. And that's what the left/right/centre labels really are, political diversity confined to a single plane.
Jeremy McNaughton; London, Canada
June 6th 2004 3:40am
PS. first time contributing to wikipedia after reading it for years, sorry if there's any etiquette that i'm ignoring.
armey good Left wing and privileged status right wing are very vague concepts and seem to depend much for their meaning on who is using the terms. I heard Charles Kennedy's speech today on the radio (he was speaking at their annual conference) and he said that the Lib Dems were neither left or right wing. Liberal Democrats (as the names suggests) support freedom from government interference which seems to be considered right wing but the Lib Dems are considered more left wing than labour. I'm sure that it wouldn't be difficult to even see issues that are considered right wing in one country and left wing in another. In Britain the terms have probably become interlinked with the policies of Conservative (RW) and Labour (LW) regardless of whether they are actually right wing or not, although this is not always the case, people accuse Labour of being right wing. let terrorists Cap/Cap 13:43, 23 Sep 2004
Lib Dems have long eschewed the terms "left" and "right", claiming they are meaningless. By the way, it is too simplistic to say that Lib Dems are to the left of Labour. Perhaps this is so in terms of official national policies (even so, Labour claims that Lib Dems opposed the recent minimum wage increase - is this true?). There are some councils where Lib Dems are to the right of Labour. Even in Parliament, Labour has an (admittedly small) hard-left faction which is to the left of the Lib Dems. And the Lib Dems consistently deny being to the left of Labour, whether people regard them as such or not. Also, leading rightwingers in the party have recently called for a shift to (what non-Lib Dems call) the right. Plus Labour is still seen as more union-friendly. To Jeremy: in the UK, government interference is not purely a leftwing thing. Traditionally the conservatives have supported government interference in some respects (e.g. tough law and order policies, Section 28 and other government-instigated discrimination against homosexuals). Examples of what is considered left and right. Left: higher taxes on the rich, higher spending on health and education, more generous welfare payments, laws more favourable towards the trade unions, and (arguably) laws protecting sexual and racial equality and giving greater equality to gays. Right: increased role for the market or private sector in health and education, further privatization measures, restrictions on unions, reduced welfare payments, reduced taxation (particularly when it benefits the rich disproportionately). 5 Oct 2004 18:37
Do we really have to have weblinks to every local Lib Dem association? Wikipedia is not a links repository and the local party sites are accessible via the federal party site and several other links. era features Dbiv/Dbiv 22:02, 22 Oct 2004
:On top of that, some of the links are to MPs/prospective candidates rather than local associations. E.g. Simon Hughes's home page should be linked from Simon Hughes, not here. Henrygb/Henrygb 23:43, 22 Oct 2004
Right, that's it, they're gone. If anyone wants to find a local party they can go to the Huntingdonshire site which links to them all, but they're not going on this page. Dbiv/Dbiv 22:01, 24 Oct 2004
-
Let's write "commie" instead then, so readers would know in what context to read it...
Anyway, this wikipedia does not exist for the exclusive benefit of an American audience. And the Nextel ringtones Liberal Democrats (UK)/LibDems do occupy (traditionally at least) the centrist niche in the British political spectrum (with Labour to their left, and the Conservatives to their right).
Herman (who thinks 'left-wing', 'centrist' and 'right-wing' are rather meaningless indicators anyway)
Shouldn't this title just be changed to just Liberal Democrats? Lets remove the "British" part altogther as the party isn't reffered to as that. Abbey Diaz User:Greg Godwin/Greg Godwin
:For the record, it was changed from ''British Liberal Democrats'' to ''Liberal Democrats (UK)'' after discussion in what is now Free ringtones Talk:The Labour Party (UK). ''Liberal Democrats'' is a redirect to here at the moment. Majo Mills User:Rbrwr/rbrwr
Seen elsewhere on WP: '' He's a Liberal Democrat. WP doesn't explain their ideology, but assuming from the name, it's not a racist, homophobic crap-party? (No idea) '' I think this means we should give a rough summary of their policies over the years to give an idea. One to mention might be the "1p extra on income tax to p[ay for education" from a general election past. Mosquito ringtone Tarquin/Tarquin 09:31 20 Jun 2003 ~
:I've made a start. Sabrina Martins User:Rbrwr/rbrwr
:http://www.libdems.org.uk/documents/policies/Policy_Papers/LiberalDemocracy.pdf will probably be useful for this (I'm mainly putting this here for my own refence when I get around to it, not trying to push anyone into using it)...
:Nextel ringtones Jdforrester/James F. 22:33 21 Jun 2003
:
I have made some changes to the policy section to reflect the latest party policies. If there are any other Liberal Democrat party members on Wikipedia do they have any other suggestions as to what our most important policies are?
I have not mentioned opposition to the war in Iraq because it seems too much like "current events".
At some point I might write a more detailed account of post-merger history and put it up as a separate article.
Abbey Diaz User:JMonroe/Jonathan Monroe
I don't think we should refer to the lib dem spokespeople as a "shadow cabinet". Shadow cabinet only refers to the official opposition, as far as I know. Free ringtones Secretlondon/Secretlondon 00:44, Jan 1, 2004
:See [http://www.parliament.uk/directories/hciolists/libdems.cfm], which I take as oh, reasonably authoritative ;) They've only recently started calling it that, though. Majo Mills Morwen/Morwen 00:46, Jan 1, 2004
I will be doing some work on the LibDem page, as well as creating some new relevant pages. I will attempt to explain libdem ideology a bit.
- a liberal
Does it strike anybody that this article is totally POV in a way that Cingular Ringtones Labour Party (UK) and them scott Conservative Party (UK) are not? 23:58, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
:Better now (I think) 02:27, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Does Liberal stuff belong here
An awful lot of stuff on this page is about the Liberal Party and duplicates the standing it Liberal Party (UK)/Liberal Party article. The Liberal Party was a seperate party so I'm not sure if this stuff belongs here.
Whoever wrote this seems to assume that the Lib Dems are basically the Liberal Party with a different name, ignoring the Social Democratic imput to the party caused by the merger with the SDP. rather strong G-Man/G-Man 17:34, 2 May 2004
the Lib Dems see themselves as part of the Liberal tradition and the SDP's philosophical contribution has kind-of submerged. I am slightly concerned about the duplication tho (this page is better on some material and Liberal Party is better on others). Arguably the history should go on the Liberal Party page. The counter-argument is that Lib Dems are keen to emphasise the continuation of the Liberal tradition in spite of the name change.
mild pace The Land/The Land 09:10, 3 May 2004
:I think all the detailed history should definitely be merged into the Liberal Party article, where it clearly belongs, with a summary here (perhaps a couple of decent-sized paragraphs) and a clear link saying something like "''for full information, see figure efforts The Liberal Party (UK)''". It could also mention something of the social democratic heritage that comes ultimately from the Labour Party. This page should concentrate on the post-1988 party. I don't promise that I'll have time to do it, though. confused an User:Rbrwr/rbrwrbroad national User talk:Rbrwr/ˆ
: fine by me and will help though no promises to do it all either. Hopefully we weil lend up with clearer presentation of what the Lib Dems are about. Anyone else's views? advanced double The Land/The Land 11:36, 3 May 2004
The Lib Dems and NI
I am rewriting this edit:
''The Liberal Democrats, in common with the other major UK Politics parties, do not organise directly in less talked Northern Ireland, however they do work closely with the industry clinton Alliance Party of Northern Ireland.''
This isn't true. The Lib Dems do organise in NI, but do not ''contest'' elecions. According to Nicholas Whyte (a former APNI candidate (to the you kid Northern Ireland Forum and former APNI elecions official):
''They'' [The Ulster Liberal Party] ''remain active as the NI branch of the Liberal Democrats but have a policy of not contesting elections as long as Alliance remains a more credible liberal force.'' [http://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/gparties.htm]
I have rewritten it this way:
'''The Liberal Democrats, like the the do The Conservative Party (UK)/Conservatives, organise in for socioeconomic Northern Ireland. However, unlike the Tories, the Lib Dems have chosen not to contest elections in the province. Instead, they have opted to work closely with the bollinger he Alliance Party of Northern Ireland.'''
players backgrounds Hoshie/iHoshie 03:09, 4 Jul 2004
:I can see where you are coming from on this, but I feel it now over-plays the position. The word ''organise'' suggests that LDs pro-actively seek or support membership in that part of the UK. They don't. If you check with [http://www.libdems.org.uk/index.cfm/page.main/section.people] you will see that there is no State Party for NI, nor is there are NI element to the Federal party. The LDs support the Alliance, indeed David Ford occasionally visits the Cowley Street head office of the LibDems, but any members of the LDs in NI tend to be 'ex-pats' from the rest of the UK sfaiaa. underbelly a VampWillow/VampWillow 07:12, 5 Jul 2004
Left, right and centre
'''What do left, right and centre mean?'''
I don't know anything more about British politics than what is published in the Canadian media or on the internet. This article is full of lots of great information about the Liberal Democrats (who I knew nothing about). I also don't know anything about left, right and centre.
Well, I do because those terms are used frequently here in Canada. The words probably have different meaning on opposite sides of the Atlantic, but that's not my problem.
The range of differences between political ideologies is wide and complex. Political ideologies have dogmas on property, economy, social relations, the way we get around, get off and get dressed.
What is left and what is right? On some issues if you go far enough in either direction you get to the same place. Government interference, for example is hated by hardcore "right wingers" and by anarchists alike.
The point I'm trying to make is that the differences between ideologies are too complex to be described by a one dimensional plane. And that's what the left/right/centre labels really are, political diversity confined to a single plane.
Jeremy McNaughton; London, Canada
June 6th 2004 3:40am
PS. first time contributing to wikipedia after reading it for years, sorry if there's any etiquette that i'm ignoring.
armey good Left wing and privileged status right wing are very vague concepts and seem to depend much for their meaning on who is using the terms. I heard Charles Kennedy's speech today on the radio (he was speaking at their annual conference) and he said that the Lib Dems were neither left or right wing. Liberal Democrats (as the names suggests) support freedom from government interference which seems to be considered right wing but the Lib Dems are considered more left wing than labour. I'm sure that it wouldn't be difficult to even see issues that are considered right wing in one country and left wing in another. In Britain the terms have probably become interlinked with the policies of Conservative (RW) and Labour (LW) regardless of whether they are actually right wing or not, although this is not always the case, people accuse Labour of being right wing. let terrorists Cap/Cap 13:43, 23 Sep 2004
Lib Dems have long eschewed the terms "left" and "right", claiming they are meaningless. By the way, it is too simplistic to say that Lib Dems are to the left of Labour. Perhaps this is so in terms of official national policies (even so, Labour claims that Lib Dems opposed the recent minimum wage increase - is this true?). There are some councils where Lib Dems are to the right of Labour. Even in Parliament, Labour has an (admittedly small) hard-left faction which is to the left of the Lib Dems. And the Lib Dems consistently deny being to the left of Labour, whether people regard them as such or not. Also, leading rightwingers in the party have recently called for a shift to (what non-Lib Dems call) the right. Plus Labour is still seen as more union-friendly. To Jeremy: in the UK, government interference is not purely a leftwing thing. Traditionally the conservatives have supported government interference in some respects (e.g. tough law and order policies, Section 28 and other government-instigated discrimination against homosexuals). Examples of what is considered left and right. Left: higher taxes on the rich, higher spending on health and education, more generous welfare payments, laws more favourable towards the trade unions, and (arguably) laws protecting sexual and racial equality and giving greater equality to gays. Right: increased role for the market or private sector in health and education, further privatization measures, restrictions on unions, reduced welfare payments, reduced taxation (particularly when it benefits the rich disproportionately). 5 Oct 2004 18:37
Do we really have to have weblinks to every local Lib Dem association? Wikipedia is not a links repository and the local party sites are accessible via the federal party site and several other links. era features Dbiv/Dbiv 22:02, 22 Oct 2004
:On top of that, some of the links are to MPs/prospective candidates rather than local associations. E.g. Simon Hughes's home page should be linked from Simon Hughes, not here. Henrygb/Henrygb 23:43, 22 Oct 2004
Right, that's it, they're gone. If anyone wants to find a local party they can go to the Huntingdonshire site which links to them all, but they're not going on this page. Dbiv/Dbiv 22:01, 24 Oct 2004
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