Liberal Democrats

From Conservapedia

The Liberal Democrats, often known as the "Lib Dems", are a political party in the United Kingdom. They have traditionally occupied the center of the political spectrum, between the Labour Party on the left and the Conservative Party on the right ("liberal" in British political parlance means "centrist" or "moderate" rather than "left-wing", as it does in the United States). At the present time, the party is seen as being moderately left-leaning.

The Liberal Democrats' current leader is Nick Clegg.^[1]

The Liberal Democrats were formed in 1988 by a merger between the centrist Liberal Party and the moderately left-wing Social Democratic Party, which had split off from the Labour Party in the early 1980s when the latter became too strongly socialist. The Liberal Party was one of the oldest political parties in the world, tracing its roots back to the Whigs of the era of William of Orange.

History

Since its foundation, the party has steadily increased its presence in the House of Commons at each successive election. The party won 62 seats in the 2005 general election^[2] - the most that the party or its predecessors had won since the election of 1923.

Policies

Their policies can be broadly described as social-democratic, with a libertarian bent - they have mooted the idea of decriminalizing recreational drugs, whilst arguing for a rationalization of the currently confused status of the various components of the United Kingdom.

They support laws against discrimination based on race, gender, disability, religion and sexuality.^[3] The party traditionally advocated higher spending funded from higher taxes, but from 2007 onwards have advocated replacing or cutting some taxes, particularly Council Tax, which takes a higher proportion from the poor than the rich.^[4] They opposed the Iraq War, but were in favour of the Bosnian and Kosovo wars. They are the most pro-European Union party in British politics, and support an amnesty for illegal migrants that have lived in the UK for a decade without a criminal record.^[5] Lib Dems, like all other parties in the UK, want the UK and the EU to take the lead in combating Global Warming. The Lib Dems want to stop global temperatures rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above the 1990 average, by making the UK a zero-carbon economy by 2050, and having more efficient buildings and transport.^[6]

The most realistic chance of power for the party is to be part of a coalition government in a hung parliament, and they always state their terms for such an event at General elections. This has always included introducing proportional representation for elections, and their terms for the 2009/10 election include: to reform government by capping private donations, reducing the number of MPs, having a 100% elected House of Lords (it is currently made of bishops and party appointees), and having a written constitution and a Bill of Rights.^[7]