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.
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7 responses to Reasons to Vote Liberal Democrat 2010 General Election
im not going to say the lib dems will give us everything we want, and i dont agree with all their policies, theyre basically the best of a bad lot but theyre getting my vote next year, lets be realstic, they are the only party, outside the usual boring old waste of time red and blue that has a hope of being voted in,
This country needs something different, complete change its been labour or conservative for years
lets try something different, it might not work, i thought labour would but they just turned out to be tories in red, but you never know, vote lib dems and we just might be pleasently surprised.
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Reasons to Vote Liberal Democrat 2010 General Election
Mark, if you are British just look at which party is the ONLY one to stand up for the BRITISH,
VOTE BNP !!
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+49
Mark, you said -
`they are the only party, outside the usual boring old waste of time red and blue that has a hope of being voted in’
If you look at the top of this page, you will see they are a little over 2% BEHIND the BNP in this poll so I can’t agree. The GE may throw up some surprises.
But for the existence of The British National party, I would agree with you but all three main parties `P!$$ in the same Pot’ regarding the EU, (and as a result)continued immigration, continued wars in foreign lands (that have nothing to do with us), racism (against Whites),etc, and have not got the balls to fight impending Islamification, together with full Sharia law.
As a nation fighting for survival we need STRONG, truthful leadership for once.
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+34
Reasons to Vote Liberal Democrat 2010 General Election
Oh yeah because Nick Griffin is obviously a very truthful leader. He does readily admit to being friends with all sorts of, ahem, colourful people and doesnt try to hide his policies at all. One must remember that no politician is ever truly honest come election time. They are selling themselves and will give answers that we all want to hear. I suggest supporters of all parties do a little research into the people they are supporting. Ignorant racists are not welcome in this country.
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Reasons to Vote Liberal Democrat 2010 General Election
The Liberal Democrats are the only real option to voters which have had enough of Labour and Conservative governments which have been in power for over 100yrs and damage democracy in the process.
It’s time for a change and the Liberal Democrats are the only party with enough support to put up a fight with David Cameron’s think of them-self first Tories and Gordon Brown’s out of touch not so new Labour.
All the smaller party supporters need to vote Liberal Democrat to bring in proportional representation, it’s our only hope of ever gaining the power our parties deserve. The Green party, over 1 million votes and no MPS, it’s not democratic.
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+3
Reasons to Vote Liberal Democrat 2010 General Election
Whilst I agree that the LibDems are the only real party with any mass support (currently 62 MPs) that can challenge the main two parties, I feel that they LibDems are a little to weak on policy, not as in they don’t have many meaning the policies they do have are not strong enough to deal with the current problems in the country.
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+2
Reasons to Vote Liberal Democrat 2010 General Election
I do think more people should vote Lib Dem instead of BNP or UKIP.
From what I’ve heard so far the Lib Dem’s policies are impressive, including their plans to tax the profits of banks in order to try and counter the obscene government deficit, and their impressive and transparent history of expenses claims (for anyone who still cares).
And for all the people that say “they’ll never get in” please vote for them anyway because x amount of “they’ll never get in”s amount to a significant voting percentage.
And if they dont get in then you can change it to “I told you so” but at least when you say that the figures should be a lot more impressive.
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Reasons to Vote Liberal Democrat 2010 General Election
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