The Liberal Prime Minister Who Wasn't: Part 1 - Road to Power

Often in Liberal circles, the question comes up as to Prime Ministers we should claim the legacy of; this is understandable considering the Party hasn't had a PM since 1922, over a century ago now. Usually the chief candidate for this position is Winston Churchill, who was a key player in the Liberal Governments of 1906-1922, and whose stint as Conservative Prime Minister during World War 2 is so ingrained in British memory that I don't even have to write anything about it for you to understand my point. Churchill  consistently topped most rankings among academics, the public, and journalists at the end of the 20th Century, so it's easy to see why he'd be a popular choice for a Prime Minister to claim as sharing our values, particularly as the Conservative Party moves away from Thatcherism and more towards National Populism. I however would like to propose a different candidate for the job, Harold Wilson, the longest serving Prime Minster of the post-war consensus, who was successfully reelected on four occasions. - more than any other 20th Century PM. 

Harold Wilson characteristically smoking his pipe, a common occurence in photos of him. 

This one's turned out far longer than usual as it spans several decades of history and requires explaining some dynamics in the Labour Party, so maybe grab a warm drink. With regards to this I have also decided to split this into multiple Parts and sections so that I don't spend forever on an overly long post, please feel free to skip context you may already know, I have written presuming my audience doesn't. Future pieces in this series will be posted as and when I finish them.

Liberal Influences up to 1950

The first and most obvious reason for Liberals to claim Wilson's legacy, is that his early political career was steeped in influence from the Liberal Party, which he had initially joined during University, much like his Father, who had been involved in Churchill's 1908 by-election campaign, It was only during the Great Depression, which forced him to witness his own father and classmates falling into joblessness, that Wilson was convinced to switch to the Labour, though he notably never joined Oxford's Labour Club, stating in his Memoirs that "What I felt I could not stomach was all those Marxist public school products rambling on about the exploited workers and the need for a socialist revolution." It was clear, even at this point, he was more interested in Socialism from a Technocratic standpoint than and Ideological one. When the war broke out in 1939 he was deemed placed in the Civil Service as a researcher for William Beveridge, a Liberal MP, under which he would provide the crucial research for the 1942 Beveridge Report, which provided the crucial basis for both Labour and the Liberal Party's 1945 Manifestos. As such we can observe that Wilson was already steeped in Liberal influence from the start of his career.

Wilson himself would stand as Labour MP for Osmkirk in the 1945 General Election, winning the Seat with a comfortable majority of just over 7000 votes. While there is certainly something to be said about his role in the Attlee Government, he was generally regarded at the time as an unremarkable MP compared to some of his contemporaries, with one critic remarking his very technical speeches were "Mountainous sandwiches of tedium." Yet despite this, a power struggle between the Left and Right Labour would soon bring him to the top of the Party; but to understand this, we must look at what the bigger players of what the time were doing.

A taste of the posters that the major parties displayed in 1945, it's easy to see the strengths of Labour's campaign.

Divides in Labour 1950-55

Understanding Wilson's rise to power in the Labour Party (as well as Labour more generally) requires understanding the internal split that had developed by the Attlee Government's second Term (1950-51) between two high-ranking Cabinet Members, Aneurin "Nye" Bevan, and Hugh Gaitskell:

Bevan was on the Left of Labour and was the mind behind the National Health Service, and he drew openly from Marxist theories of Class Struggle in his political tracts. Bevanites generally wanted to use Nationalisation as a tool to distribute economic power away from Capitalists and towards Managers and Workers, often (understandably) being very hostile to compromises that would reduce gains they'd made, though that does not imply inflexibility or lack of discussion around policy more generally. Bevanites were also sceptical of America and Europe, instead advocating a Socialist Alternative among willing countries, arguing that it would create lasting peace that would allow for partial disarmament, though they were divided on if Nuclear disarmament was realistically possible. These ideas were usually more popular among Labour's activists than the Parliamentary Party. When people refer to "Old Labour" they usually mean Bevanite Labour. Notable Bevanites included:

• Tony Benn - Friend of Jeremy Corbyn and credited by Zack Polanski as his favourite Politician, much of modern Hard-Left thought in Britain can be traced to his often very astute observations on politics.
• Micheal Foot - The future Labour Leader, whose 1983 Manifesto was infamously criticised by the Shadow Health Secratary as "The Longest Suicide Note in History" for it's positions against NATO, the EU and Nuclear Weaponry.
• Barbara Castle - A now oft-forgotten champion of Women's Rights in political discourse, she intervened to help striking Sewing Machinists who were being paid over 15% less than their male colleagues, culminating in her work passing the Equal Pay Act of 1970.
• Harold Wilson - the star of today's blogpost, though as you'll see, his relationship with the Bevanites is a bit more complicated. 

Gaitskell on the other hand, was on the Right of Labour, to the point where his followers were often dispargingly called Butskellites due to how often they aligned Rab Butler, the Conservative Chancellor. They did not believe that the Common Ownership of the Means of Production, as outlined in Marxist theory, was essential to achieving Socialism, and instead emphasised social equality, strong welfare, and personal freedom as the core of the movement, viewing the traditional Socialist ideas of Trade Unions and Nationalisation as mere tools towards their goals instead of essential parts of their ideology. They were generally in favour of more hawkish foreign policy as well as being more pro-Europe, though Gaitskell himself criticised his followers for the latter. These ideas tended to be more popular among the Parliamentary Party than Activists. Notable Gaitskellites included:

• Anthony Crosland - Arguably to the right of Gaitskell himself, his book 'The Future of Socialism' is seen as essential to the trajectory of New Labour's policies, with Gordon Brown writing the foreword for the 50th Anniversary edition.
• Roy Jenkins - Founding member of the SDP, and later Liberal Democrat. He played a key role in reducing restrictions on homosexuality, abortion and divorces, ending capital punishment and theatre censorship, and even oversaw a budget surplus in his time as Chancellor, paving the path to joining the European Communities.
• Shirley Williams - Another SDP Founder, and later Liberal Democrat. She was a supporter of Crosland's Campaign to establish Comprehensive Schooling and one of the Leaders of the Remain Campaign in the 1975 Brexit Referendum.
• Jim Callaghan - Future Prime Minister and Labour Leader. His loss to Margaret Thatcher in 1979 after insufficiently dealing with the Winter of Disconent - a series of strikes that paralysed the country - spelt eighteen years in Opposition for Labour

It should be noted that these factions were by no means as much of a monolith as I'm making them out to be; they were often, in reality, very fluid, and Labour MPs usually held several views in common with both factions. Tony Benn, for example, only moved to the Left in the early 1970s. Equally, these faction names were by no means consistent, what was called a Bevanite might now be referred to as a Corbynite, and what was a Gaitskellite now more closely resembles a Brownite. However, for the sake of consistency, I will be using their original labels.

Gaitskell (left) and Bevan (right) on an ITV Programme discussing their visit to the Soviet Union.

Regardless, in 1951 the divides between the two factions came to a head when Gaitskell, who had recently become Chancellor, decided to introduce prescription charges (which still exist in England today!) on previously free NHS Services to help fund the British effort in the Korean War. This angered Bevan and his allies who felt the move would disproportionately affected the Working Classes, defeating the point of the NHS, leading to a mass resignation of Bevanite MPs. The affair left George VI nervous that the Government, which had only won a slim majority of 5 Seats in 1950, would collapse while he was on a foreign trip, and requested an early election for 1951. At this point the public had grown discontented with the disunited Labour Party, and the Conservative Party, promising to respect several elements of the "Socialist Doctrine", won out.

By this time Attlee had grown nervous that if he stepped down the leadership contest would turn into a battle between Gaitskell and Bevan, that would divide the party; and so despite his declining health, he stayed as leader until after the 1955 General Election in the hopes the divides would calm down in the mean time. When Labour lost again to the incumbent Conservative Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, Attlee resigned, with Deputy Leader Herbert Morisson regarded as being the continuity candidate in the following Leadership Election. However, much like Attlee had predicted, the real competition would be between Gaitskell and Bevan, who both threw their hats into the ring. In the end Gaitskell would win with the support of 59% of Labour's MPs, alongside backing from the Transport, Mineworkers and General Unions, one of the single largest margins of victory in Labour History. 

Becoming the Leader of Labour 1955-1963

With that relatively lengthy detour out the way we return to Wilson himself. Wilson had been part of the 1951 Rebellion of Bevanites and resigned his role as President of the Board of Trade during it, in this time he had begun to make a name for himself as one of the first and foremost MPs of the Bevanite faction alongside others like Foot, and when Bevan died in 1959, he quickly rose to be leader of the faction due to his more moderate positions on Nuclear Armaments and more respectable and less dogmatic demeanour than someone more abrasive, like Micheal Foot. 

 
A Vicky Weisz Cartoon depicting Wilson and co. as young troublemakers attacking the successful Gaitskellites.

When Labour lost Seats for the third General Election in a row in 1959, one they were expected to win, Gaitskell decided there was a need to reshape Labour, and began to make moves to change Clause IV of the Labour Party Constitution to remove the commitment to the Nationalisation of all industry, he had continually defied the Policy of Nuclear Disarmament that had won popular support at Labour's Conference that same year, angering the Left of the Party and leading to another set of resignations. With divisions still prominent almost a decade after the 1951 loss, Wilson decided in 1960 to challenge Gaitskell for the Leadership of the Party, stating that the problem was not Gaitskell's direction, but a question of  respecting the democratic will of the Party. With Gaitskell having already threatened to remove him from position of Shadow Chancellor in order to consolidate the Right of the Party, Wilson felt he had nothing to lose. 

Unforunately Wilson would lose the leadership race in 1960, and in a 1961 reshuffle he was demoted to Shadow Foreign Secretary. However, in January 1963 another opportunity would open up for Wilson when Gaitskell unexpectedly died, with Wilson, the most experienced candidate of the three tunning, winning 58% of the MPs on the ballot. With only a year to go before the next scheduled General Election, and the Conservatives polling increasingly poorly, Wilson would have the Herculean task to unite the Labour Party into a credible force of Governance in just under a year. 

Wilson initially challenge Gaitskell out of respect for the Party's vote in favour of Nuclear Disarmament, but in his first interview for Panorama in 1963, he would reiterate that he supported Gaitskell and instead opposed the way he tried to ignore the more Bevanite Grassroots, risking further Party divides. Additionally, Wilson avoided significantly reshuffling the Gaitskell Shadow Cabinet, keeping most Ministers in the same positions, despite much of Gaitskell's Shadow Cabinet being publicly known to have voted against him, putting teamwork above personal ideology. 

 

Of nine roles carried over from the Gaitskell Cabinet (excluding his own) Wilson retained 2/3 of Gaitskell's appointments.

It is here another Liberal trait of Harold Wilson presents itself; his belief in democracy and debate. Contemporary Labour MPs regarded him as a politician without principle, believing he put his ambition before any values, but the truth is respecting democratic choices was a principle in it's own right, and as you'll see in the next section, this by no means suggests he was passive about decisions. I occasionally hear it asked how Labour is so unhealthily factional compared to the Liberal Democrats, and it's got a lot to do with the centralised structure of the Party; as we've seen with the blocking of Andy Burnham, all you need to control the majority of the Party's functions, is to control the top. Wilson, in respecting democratic decisions by both activists and MPs kept the Party together in a way it has rarely seen, and this is a value we share, whether that be through our many forums for debate such as Lib Dem Voice or Liberator Magazine, or the Conference itself where we vote, debate and ammend documents that we'd like to become official Party Policy. The ability to direct a wide range of views towards a common goal was a value both we and Wilson share.

Leading and Campaigning 1963-1964 

In 1963 the Conservative Party had been faltering after twelve years in power, with rising unemployment, a failure to negotiate membership of the European Community, facing a veto from French President Charles de Gaulle over their pro-American foreign policy, and a Cabinet reshuffle so brutal it was variously dubbed by the papers as a 'Night of the Long Knives' and 'the most reckless political appointment since Roman Emperor Caligula made his favourite horse a Consul'. This was fertile ground for Wilson to strike, and when the Conservatives were found to have used Parliamentary Privillege to cover-up their MP John Profumo's infidelity in June 1963 - with his lover having links to Soviet intelligence - Wilson spared no time in tabling a Motion of No Confidence against the Conservative Government.  This decisive move allowed Labour to appear as serious opposition to the Conservatives when they were still largely expected to win in 1964, and while the Motion failed, it would irreversibly damage the Conservatives reputation, with the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan being forced to resign in October that year, using what was a benign prostate issue as an excuse. In the past decisiveness has been the make or break for the Liberal Democrats, 

Aside from his cunning, another skill Wilson developed at this time was his oratory, although this was not immediately obvious; in the aforementioned Panorama Interviw, Wilson kept a moderate, calm and almost Statesman-like tone, attempting to replicate Attlee's speaking style, often at the time as regarded as the only man who had kept the factions under control. However, this would soon be shed as Wilson delivered his first speech to the Labour Conference in October 1963. This speech, wholly written himself, 'The White Heat of the Technological Revolution' is regarded as one of the best he ever gave; in this speech, he made his principles clear, like Gaitskell, he would warn the the Labour Party that if it got stuck in old-fashioned industrial relations at a time where technology and lifestyles were rapidly changing, it would be doomed to continue losing. Wilson argued that if Labour refused to adapt to this new age of automation, corporations would use it to create unemployment instead of propserity in the name of profit, and if they rejected it altogether, Britain would lose it's innovative minds and become a backwater, as such he advocated for a regulated market and for education to be accessible throughout life, so all could have a chance to become innovators, George Brown, who had stood against Wilson in the leadership race would state "Although I had doubts about how we reached our leadership decision six months ago, I consider it an honour to pay tribute to the way we our being led now." Wilson's attempt at uniting the factions of Labour behind him had succeeded. This was a watershed moment, and one that would define the trajectory of his future Governments, and was well received by Conference compared to Gaitskell's attempts to force through his agenda. What this speech outlined is  also noticeably Liberal set of policies, suggesting both an overly controlling State and a totally free market would lead to failure, ideas clearly outlined in the preamble of the Liberal Democrat Constitution with the emphasis on education also reflected in our policy. 

Throughout 1964 the new Conservative Prime Minister and former Peer Alec Douglas-Home would avoid calling an election, as after the Profumo Scandal all credibility the Conservatives had left had dried up, this led to an unusual period of extended campaigning as the Tories had to combat a Labour that was ramping up action in hopes of an early election. During this campaign Wilson would fully shed his Statesman-like identity to present himself as a man of the people, in tune with modernity. In March 1964 he would appear on TV to present the Show Biz Top Award to The Beatles, the most popular band of the day - in which he cracked jokes about trying to stay "non-political" while reading a negative review about the band from a Right-wing paper to much laughter. This would become emblematic of his youthful campaign style, with an American-style convention in Wembley showcasing the growing multicultural nature of Britain through the employment of a Pakistani Dance show during the convention. Wilson also avoided dealing with the old papers that were already hostile to Labour, opting instead to use the emerging medium of Television to get his message out, which contrasted him with the aristocratic Earl Home, who struggled to keep up with the more rapid pace of debate and campaigning outside of the Lords, with his perceived old-fashioned demeanour perhaps best being exemplified by his By-Election campaign, when the ironically named George Younger, a 31 year old Tory Candidate stepped aside to let Home run.

In this way, Liberals may have a thing or two to learn from Harold Wilson's campaign strategy, we are stuck wondering why the papers and news channels seem completely disinterested in our sensible discussion, using increasingly absurd stunts to try and get more air time, despite several studies and polls  suggesting they're not successful. The truth is that in an era where podcasts and short snappy clips are key, we are not using Social Media effectively; this has been key to the rise of Reform and the Greens, and has contributed our slump into fifth place in the polls. It may be time we, like Wilson's Labour, become a Party of the People, instead of appealing to the old and tired Tories, that are flocking to Reform like a lifeboat.

The election night on the 15th of October 1964 would prove tense as in the closing months of the 1964 race the Conservatives had managed to close the gap between themselves and Labour by resorting to increasing anti-immigration rhetoric, defending their 1962 restrictions on further Commonwealth immigration, a discourse that had become increasing prevelant among much of the white working classes after the Empire Windrush first brought across black workers from the Caribbean to help with reconstruction in 1948. This significantly undercut Wilson's Campaign for racial equality to be enshrined in law, and when the night was over, there would be under a single percentage point between the Conservatives and Labour's results, securing Labour a slim majority of four Seats. Wilson had successfully united Labour and become the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Rosebery in 1894, but his mandate was limited, and time would tell if he would be able to pass the Liberal reforms he promised in his Manifesto and campaign.

Liberal Party General Election Manifesto 1906

I recently noticed the usual source for most pre-2005 Manifestos is noticeably missing the 1906 Liberal Manifesto; a speech delivered by Henry Campbell-Bannerman to his Constituents at Stirling Burghs ahead of the General Election and published in type form alongside other pamphlets relevant to the issues of the election. 

This is an important Manifesto in many ways, as it preceded the final Majority Liberal Government and cautiously outlines some of the tenents of 'New Liberalism' - better known today as Social Liberalism - which rejected the Classical Liberal ideas of Limited Government and instead argued that safeguarding freedoms required an active role from the Government to prevent them from being threatened by poor circumstance or oppression from other sources. 

Despite this, Campbell-Bannerman himself would not be responsible for many of these reforms, as though there was popular support for them within the Party, he was in many ways stuck in the ways of Victorian Era Gladstonian Liberalism, to the point the Neoliberal Economist Friedrich Hayek would remark "Perhaps the government of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman ... should be regarded as the last Liberal government of the [Classical] type." 

By 1907 Campbell-Bannerman becoming increasingly ill, dying during his residence at 10 Downing Street in April 1908. His successor, H. H. Asquith, would then begin many of the reforms stated here in earnest.

As of now this Manifesto seems to be completely unavailable for free on the internet, and as such I have gone out of my way to source a copy for republishing, as it currently sits in the Public Domain. The following is the contents:

 

One-Nation Conservatives Are Not Our Support Base

The Liberal Democrats are not the Conservative Party. 

This statement may seem quite obvious to you or I, but it seems to elude our current leadership; in the Autumn 2025 Conference, Ed Davey would state in his closing speech, "Come, Conservative friends. Help us save our country." Now on the surface level, this makes sense to ask for, under the 2023 Seat Redistribution, we held only 8 Seats, and of the whopping 64 Seats we gained in 2024, 60 came from former Tory Constiuencies, and only 4 were from SNP Constituencies. Clearly, the disaffected moderate Tories had come to the Liberal Democrats in droves; indeed, of these Constituencies 12 (or about 20%) were previously occupied by members of the One-Nation Parliamentary Group. So case closed, right? We should continue to target Conservative Seats until they are eventually eclipsed by the Liberal Democrats as the Official Opposition! No, not really, and I have a few reasons to believe this.

For one, of the three defectors we had from the One-Nation Group during the 2019 Parliament, not one of those seats remained Liberal by the 2024 General Election, 15 of them flipped to Labour, and a further 21 remained Conservative, so we were hardly the main party One-Nation Conservatives turned to in 2024, in fact, we only gained 0.6% in of the vote share, and actually declined in terms of real votes, so it can hardly be said voters turned to us at all. Additionally, I just don't think the average voter is that ideological, rather moreso emotional and/or tribal; in my own Constituency of West Suffolk, for example, Nick Timothy, who replaced the outgoing One-Nation Group member, Matt Hancock, seems to have almost nothing in common with him ideologically other than the fact they both are were in the Conservative Party.

As one final nail in the coffin on the idea moderate Conservatives flocking to us, I'd like to draw attention to the fact that polls have repeatedly shown that Conservative voters have very little in common with the Liberal Democrats ideologically, with one YouGov poll on this topic showing that 2024 Conservative voters saw themselves, as being 65 points to the right of Liberal Democrats, and only 25 to the left of Reform, Meanwhile, Labour voters only saw themselves as being 13 points to the left of the Liberal Democrats, which is particularly notable as they also only polled themselves 8 points to the left of Labour. Additionally, another poll on ideological preference showed that Lib Dem voters and Labour voters polled within a few points of each other on almost all concepts aside from (a perhaps obvious) preference for Liberalism or Socialism, while Conservative voters views aligned more with Reform. Clearly, targeting Tory seats alone didn't win us this election.

Your natural response to this might be to say then, that it's the stunts wot won it! Except that doesn't hold up either, the wonderful Sophia Layton did a study on the effects of Ed Davey's stunts drew the wrong kind of attention to the Liberal Democrats with most media outright deriding the use of stunts, drawing attention away from our policies when they were intended to highlight them. This problem is further exposed in a separate study done by YouGov on reasons why people aren't voting Liberal Democrat, with the number one reason found being the fact that people simply don't know enough about the party, and the third being a perceived incompetence. Clearly, the stunts are damaging our reputation more than they are helping us.

So what was the secret to our 2024 success, you might be asking? Well for one, we targeted our campaign to the West Country, where we have historically been the opposition, so that gave us an obvious leg up, furthermore, in 40 of the other constituencies we won, we were already in second place. It's no secret that the 2024 General Election was largely won through tactical anti-Tory voting, hence how disproportionate it was, and I suspect what happened was that a lot of people who usually vote for Labour or the Greens put their votes behind us as we were the most likely party to oust Tories in their constituency, especially considering how many seats we won matched the Best for Britain tactical voting guide. This would be fine enough as a starting point, but in 2024 we only came second place in 25 constituencies, and only six of those are predicted to be gains, suggesting we're hitting the upper limit of how much we can gain through tactical voting alone. This issue was also highlighted earlier in the aforementioned YouGov poll on why people aren't voting Lib Dem as the second most likely reason people weren't voting Liberal Democrat was because they didn't think we'd be able to form a Government, which would seem strange considering we won so many seats in the last election until you realise our voting base were voting mostly for "not the Tories."

That's the crutch of the issue really; how many of our 72 Seats will survive once there is no need for tactical voting? Our campaigning isn't working, few people know what we stand for, and our voter base remains at about half of what it was in 2010. I don't know the solution to this problem, but we could certainly start by looking at what our friends over the pond, such as D66 or Zohran Mamdani are doing, both proposed radical, progressive changes and won their respective elections, shattering the whole concept of the centrist voter who we must water down our message to appeal to. 

I want more attention drawn to this problem, particularly from our leadership, who's rhetoric currently suggests they are unaware it even exists, calmly pandering to imaginary "One-Nation Tories" and fighting for vague cultural concepts such as "Churchill's Britain." While Davey did speak about targeting more than just Tory seats in the speech I quoted at the beginning, there was little focus given to it, and even less on how we'd even do that other than simply being the least bad option. But being the least bad option doesn't win long-term supporters, having values and fighting on the issues that matter to people do. I just hope we take that on board before we experience how razor thin our current base truly is.

Linton: The Flag War

I don't usually like to comment heavily on so-called 'Culture War' issues; when referring to them I often just state the very normal viewpoint among Liberals that people should have a right to do as they would like so long as it doesn't harm others or their property, as well as the fact that no organisation has any right to dictate how a person should live. However, many of us have no doubt witnessed the so-called Raise the Colours movement, founded by Tommy Robinson and Andy Saxon - both known Neofascists - expressing the exact opposite in an attempt to create an inescapable, totalising feeling that they have mass support. It should come as no suprise that the Fascists of old did the exact same by draping their flag from every building so that it would appear there was no oppoisition to them, intimidating any questioners into silence. Because of this I feel it necessary to tell a story of community resistance to this that I have witnessed -  partially because it provides a good template for the rest of us to follow, and partially because it is now more relevant than ever to try and have hope for Britain.

It's always important to consider what the use of a flag (or any symbol) represents in context. 

To start with some context, I travel to Cambridge quite often, and in doing so I often pass a small village on the very edge of South Cambridgeshire called Linton; the village is a Liberal stronghold, having  elected a Liberal Democrat to it's District Council Seat very consistently. Slowly however, I began to notice in my travels a seeming change in attitude in the area; at first it wasn't anything massive, just a few St. George's at the roundabout nearby, but then they started travelling inwards towards the village, the smaller white roundabouts finding themselves sprayed with those characteristic red stripes. This wasn't a concern to me, I just saw it as a few disgruntled people making their grievances with immigration public even if it was in a rather antisocial way. Then it happened. One day there were flags strung high from almost every lightpost, and you could rell they were all brand new from the fresh square folding lines that were so easily caught in the sunlight. This scared me, not because I'm an immigrant - my family have lived in England since at least the 17th Century - but because I unequivocally support immigration, in other words, a traitor to my country. It was impossible for me to not worry what other views could these people could hold, the march on London where Elon Musk incited Civil War to a crowd of 150,000 was still fresh in my head, and there were so many flags that, in my mind at least, it simply couldn't have been the act of a single person overnight, this was a wave of mass opinion reflected in the decoration of a street, not a single corner left untouched by the red and white fabric of an angry Nation.  Critical minds may argue I overreacted, but let me ask you again what context these flags were put up in, a show of patriotism or conformity? - I have to presume it's the latter as one house that used to proudly display a Portugese flag next to it's Union flag had decided that it was no longer acceptable to be a Portugese Brit and had replaced it's beautiful expression of heritage with yet another tired England flag. 

Luckily, this isn't where the story ends, as a few weeks later the flags had been removed, I don't know if this was by the Council or not, but I actually somewhat doubt it as I noticed a small poster appear in the windows of many of the houses and gathering places in Linton, a Union flag with hands of many colours reaching across it's red stripes to meet in the middle. It was a show of solidarity, and it was acompanied by the following text:

WE CELEBRATE THE RICH TAPESTRY OF CULTURES, BACKGROUNDS AND STORIES THAT MAKE US WHO WE ARE.

WHETHER YOU'VE LIVED HERE FOR GENERATIONS OR HAVE ARRIVED SEEKING SAFETY OR NEW BEGINNINGS YOU'RE WELCOME.

TOGETHER WE THRIVE. TOGETHER WE BELONG. 

Seeing this poster made me realise something, anyone could have put up those flags, but it took a whole community of people to come to put these posters up in the windows of their houses, a place where only a few people could ever have access. Seeing these made me feel genuinely proud to be British, it may seem trivial to say, but anyone can be British; the identity was formed out of a union of four Nations, England & Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and even people well beyond those Nations considered themselves Brits due to the way the Settler Colonies of the Empire had been created. As such it only makes sense that if someone can stop being British, they can just as easily become British too. 

 

One of these posters by a bus stop, unfortunately I didn't think to get a higher quality photo at the time.

I think that's the root problem with English Nationalism, England must be seen as the superior Nation that created this great globe-spanning legacy. But I think that's the wrong way to approach things, it fundamentally treats the Empire in an almost romantic fashion, and to chase that is to consign ourself to history. We currently share a monarch with 14 other fully independent countries across the globe, this is a completely unique achievement in geopolitics which comes from a legacy of English dominance, but is no longer held together by that element, furthermore Commonwealth still inspires new non-Empire Nations to join, despite the only obligations on Member States being a commitment to democracy, another legacy of the brutal Empire evolving into a tool for global good. Even Hawaii, a US State that has never formally been under British control, uses the Union flag as part of it's own. To me Britishness is clearly not an expression of ethnicity or Nation, but of union, of putting aside differences for a common good. This is what patriotism should strive to be, not how many flags you wave, but of the solidarity we hold with our communities, and the actions we take to benefit them.

Sadly, the England flags would soon return again with another set of fresh creases, suggesting to me that someone had to sink some money in to replace the ones that had been taken down, and the posters that were in public places had been ripped away, but the ones in the windows remained, once again defying the message of conformity on the street, I don't know yet if this flag war will continue or not, and ultimately it doesn't truly matter; as it turns out, variants of these posters have also appeared in Bedminster, with the community there also electing to fight against the rise in anti-immigrant sentiment. If we don't want the disastrous ultranationalism of Fascism to become acceptable, then we must call it out at every opportunity. The anecdote I have recounted should provide a template for communities to follow, and as such I've attached a recreation of the poster below for you to use in your own home, even if it may start with only you alone, humans are tribal, and followers will only come when there is a leader.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE SOLIDARITY POSTER 

Why I'm a Liberal (and Social) Democrat

People who know me personally probably already know that I tend to refer to myself as a Social Democrat. A lot of people seem to get confused by this, I'm a supporter and member of the Liberal Democratic Party, and my blog quite literally has the world Liberal in the title, so what's going on?

To get the simple one out the way first, the Liberal part of the blog title was chosen to appeal to my target audience. (Other Liberal Democrats.) However, the quote and 'New Model' were moreso a personal choice as they referenced one of my favourite historical figures, Thomas Rainsborough, who fought on the side of the English Parliament in the British Civil War and campaigned for the adoption of a Republican Constitution based in radical ideas of limited Government, and freedom for the many, even those who had never had their voices represented before in the feudal system of commerce and nobility. To this day I feel that we as a country still haven't achieved some of the ideals the New Model Army and other progressive factions fought for, particularly the end of aristocracy, entrenchment of our natural rights, and the common ownership of the land. That is why the blog is titled as it is, as part of my, perhaps naive, hope that we may come closer to this more free and equal society first articulated in this period of major upheaval.

Now to the other point - the reason why I chose to join the Liberals - it would be best to start with my political background, and then go on to explain how I differ ideologically to it; to say I come from a Labour-supporting family may be the understatement of the century, my Great Grandfather was a Communist who enthusiastically supported the Labour Party during the Great Depression, his daughter, my Grandma ran as a Labour Councillor in '86, her daughter, my Aunt has written for the Fabian Society, one of my cousins is a staunch trade unionist, and, a little more personally, my Mum complains to me often that there, "Aren't enough people like Tony Blair in politics these days." With a background such as that it would seem inevitable that I would join the Labour Party myself, but I didn't, and the reason is really quite simple; the Labour Party has some really bad tendencies. Let's go over some of my favourite examples:

For one, Labour has a tendency to highly centralise state power. Hold on! I already hear you yelling at me about Scottish and Welsh devolution, but Tony Blair has very consistently downplayed his support for it, so it's hard to count as anything other than triangulation politics to net votes for New Labour. I think a better example of Labour policy on decentralisation, or, lack of, can be seen in the new English "Devolution" Bill which seems to be entirely dedicated to weakening County and District Councils in favour of these behemoth Unitary Councils which can make sweeping decisions for regions. This has been framed, apparently wrongly, as a cost-cutting measure. In my mind it'd make more sense to cut Westminster down to size instead as the number of MPs we've been hovering around since the 19th Century is completely arbritrary, we have the second largest legislature in the world, and the last time we were below 600 MPs at an election was in 1796 when less than 10,000 people are believed to have had the vote, a tiny fraction of the 48 million who held a vote in 2024, not to mention the dreaded House of Lords we've been faling to replace since 1911. The reason for this avoidance of electoral reform is twofold; Labour doesn't want to cut seats for fear it could lose some of the smaller industrial constituencies that support it in the same way the Tories don't want to risk losing a few swing seats that strongly affect their generally lower majorities. The Liberals meanwhile have been struggling under our outdated First Past the Post electoral system for years and as such are committed to creating a more proportional electoral system while also supporting changing our incredibly uneven system of devolution into a Federal Government that prevents Westminster from imposing unecessary levels of control over any Nation in the country. To me this is simply the most logical line of policy to pursue so that the Union can remain in place while giving everyone in it a voice.

Another issue I have with Labour is the fact that the higherups really seem to struggle to back minorities if it could cost them political points, the most recent example of this I can think of is their terrible mishandling of Trans Rights - mind you, as far as I can tell most of the membership do support this stance, but I find the top-down structure of the Party makes that all meaningless anyway. Things started alright during the campaign season, with promises to ban conversion therapy and a slightly more vague one to 'remove indignities' for Trans people were included in the 2024 Manifesto, but then things started to go awry. There are too many single examples to count, but there are two major ones for me; the first is the uneqivocal acceptance of the Cass Report that seeks to end the use of reversible puberty blockers alongside any other gender-affirming care for under-18s, which will no doubt lead to an increase in poor mental health among those affected. Alongside this, the review itself has been found by several medical associations to be highly biased in favour of an anti-trans approach, refusing to hear the voices of trans people themselves, and is noted to have used a flawed and vague methodology. I only learned basic biology in secondary school, but even I know that evidence must be easily repeatable and unskewed to be valid. The second one is the support of the Parliamentary Party for the Supreme Court decision on the definition of sex as mentioned to in the Equality Act 2010 as only referring to biological sex, even with a Gender Recognition Certificate. Once again, the evidence for this was flawed, as no trans people were heard for evidence. (I'm noticing a pattern here...) With the principle of Parliamentary Sovereignty in our Constitution, it'd be very easy to pass an Act to override these decisions, but the fact Labour hasn't is telling. Of course, this is just a single example of a group harmed by Labour's avoidance of political risks, though I have heard time and time again from people like Diane Abbott and Jowan Owusu-Nepaul that the party has been incredibly bad at representing BAME voices too, to the point where the Conservatives of all people are a more diverse party. As far as I am aware this isn't so much of an issue in the Liberal Democrats, which is actively committed to diversity, has recognised the flaws of this Supreme Court decision, and has attempted to remove discriminatory voices from debate, even if they have fought it.

The final, and perhaps most worrying tendency I notice within the Labour Party is the backing of fundamentally authoritarian policies in the name of security. The most notable of these is the constant support shown for compulsory ID Cards, whether that be physically in 2005, or digitally in 2025. While to a lot of people these seem like a harmless way of streamling the identification process to help deal with immigration, to me they represent a fundamental attack on our privacy and liberty, particularly the more recent digital proposal; I believe this for a few reasons, firstly, we tried this before, and it resulted in prosecution of those not carrying cards, even after the war they were intended for ended, secondly, the requirement of a sex marker could lead to further discrimination against Trans people regarding their use of bathrooms (see previous paragraph) which is even more of a concern considering current opinion polls for the next Government, and finally, we already have other forms of ID that are less intrusive such as our passports or NHS Numbers. Unshockingly the Liberals have always been against unecessary ID except in extraordinary crisis such as the aforementioned wars. Other ways Labour have introduced authoritarian policy into our system include the continued weakening of the Right to Protest, refusing to undo the Public Order Act 2023 and cracking down on anti-genocide protests regarding Israeli actions in Gaza. This has been compunded by the ridiculous 4289 crimes introduced under New Labour, most of which were justified as anti-terror legislation.

 

This statue of Winston Churchill now has more rights than I do thanks to anti-protest laws.

These are all massive dealbreakers for me backing the Labour Party, as I feel the areas they choose to focus on changing and the ones they don't are all backwards. I admit that thus far I've framed this in such a way that makes it look like I fully back the Liberals on everything, which I don't either, and is part of the reason I call myself a Social Democrat and not a Liberal. For one, while I am highly critical of state power being used to impose unecessary laws and regulations on people's lives, I am equally skeptical of the significant economic power held by large coporations to do the similar, and believe the Government needs to take a strong Keynesian stance to make sure that competition, the main benefit of a free market, is maintained. To this respect I think that - while we shouldn't impose a structure of business on any company - should favour ethical businesses such as co-operatives when the opportunity comes up. I'm also probably more open to nationalisation than your average Liberal, as I believe that natural monopolies should be in the hands of the Government to ensure a good baseline service that maintains equality of opportunity. I'm also a Georgist and believe in replacing parts of our tax system with a Land Value Tax, parts of our Welfare system with a Universal Basic Income, and a guarantee of the Right to Roam, which have become very fringe ideas within the Party since our initial failure to implement them under Lloyd-George, even though they have been successful when properly implemented elsewhere. I'm aware viewpoints like these are somewhat unwelcome in the party at times, particularly as the party line has been to appeal to marginal Tory Constituencies, but I'm of the mind that our last attempt at this is what caused our lurch to the right under Clegg and the disasterous coalition which should have never been formed with the Conservatives - or Labour either, for that matter - unless there was a real guarantee of Proportional Representation instead of whatever that referendum was. Simply put, if we want to form a Government, we're going to have to appeal to marginal Labour Constitutencies too at some point, and that means we need to differentiate ourselves and our values  from the big two. Believe me, if the SDP existed today, (not that one) I would probably have joined it instead, but it doesn't, so here we are.

The short of all this is to say that, no, I'm not some Owenite who's still angry about the Liberal-SDP merger, and I think the people who are don't actually align with the original party at all. However, I think you really ought to read the Limehouse Declaration again and question if the SDP is less represented in the Liberal D then they once were. To that effect, I want to represent what that party stood for, I think there's still a place for it in the Liberal Democrats, and I don't think there's a place for it in Labour.

Zack Polanski: Some Initial Concerns

I appreciate I'm somewhat late to the party (no pun intended) on this one, but I wanted some time to gather my thoughts and see exactly what direction the Green Party was going to take before writing a full opinion piece on this.

First, for context; the Green Party has a elected a new leader, Zack Polanski, who has decisively broken with the two leader model that the Green Party has been running since it's 2016 leadership election. That alone is significant, but even moreso is his radical break from the parties old platform of gradually winning seats, instead advocating what he personally describes as "Eco-Populsim" which in his leadership campaign video he sells as an attempt to switch the political narrative away from blaming the decline of Britain's economy and public services on immigration and towards the billionaires who stoke these divisions to distract from and protect their own accumulating wealth. It goes without saying that guaranteeing equality of opportunity and reducing wealth gaps so that a small minority of individuals is prevented from holding too much power is hard, and how it is approached is going to be key in winning my support. So then, how does Polanski stack up?

As of now, he's advocated for leaving NATO and cutting defence spending at a time when Russia is more aggressive than ever. He believes NATO unsustainable due to the percieved unreliability of the current US President Donald Trump, and that we should seek alternate arrangements in Europe. While I do get the sentiment, I think we need to be pragmatic; besides the fact this has never gone down well with the electorate, this would leave us in much the same situation as Brexit, where we leave a mainstream political grouping, heightening our reputation abroad as an uncooperative loner State and leaving us with a worse off - and perhaps less safe - deal among the exact same grouping. To give a comparison to a more right-wing policy, this would produce a similar effect to us leaving the ECHR.

Another flagship policy of Polanski's is a wealth tax, which would supposedly pay for most of his plans to expand public infrastructure and welfare as according to him it would raise about £24 billion. In this interview he specifically calls out those who oppose a wealth tax as being somewhat reactionary, citing the Patriotic Millionaires as an example of those willing, saying those who don't should be, as he puts it, "happily [waved] out the door." This would be a disaster, as wealth taxes have gone notoriously badly in other countries that have attempted them, one such being Norway, where increasing it caused an exodus of around 50 millionaires and a loss of about £438 million in tax revenue, completely ruining any projected gain. To add to this, even Australia, which has one of the lowest wealth divides in the world, does not have a federal wealth tax because of this exact issue.

While Polanski had intially impressed me with his commitment to minority rights, he has also expressed interest in forming an electoral pact with Your Party, Corbyn's new political venture. I am very skeptical about this as most members of this party are conservative, despite some vague and contradictary promises on their website. ("you will decide the party’s direction" but, also, "We will only fix the crises ... with a mass redistribution of wealth and power.") To give some examples, three of their five members voted against fully decriminalising abortion, all five voting against giving the choice of assisted dying to people, and their technical leader in Parliament Shockat Adam was Chair of a group that gave advice to Muslim parents on how to lobby against schools teaching LGBTQ+ content. This should be worrying to anyone who values their freedom as well as tolerance of different beliefs, and due to Polanski's dropping of the co-leadership model, it makes me question how much he truly cares about the voices he claims to represent.

Many of my left-leaning friends will naturally question if these critiques come from a genuine place or are just part of a centrist aversion to change, to that I answer with this; what's most ironic about this situation is the Green Party tried a large number of these policies once before in 2017 and it cost them 2% of their already small electorate. This led to their pivot to replacing a good chunk of taxes with a Land Value Tax in 2019, which would encourage the already wealthy to invest into their land to offset the costs of the tax, bringing a whole bunch of benefits. I also had some skepticism about this Manifesto too, particularly in regards to it's aversion to nuclear energy, which is actually cleaner than most other renewables. However, they were very clear on how much they would invest, promising far less than other parties in many sectors, as well as being honest about how much borrowing they would need for these investments, something few parties fo now, even better being most of these investments looked like they would actually end up paying back more in the long term. This would be the Manifesto I'd back in 2019, so it's a shame the Greens have already moved so far and away from this equally as radical, but ultimately more realistic prospect.

I fear those in Waveny Valley, the first constituency in East Anglia to ever back the Greens, will have a harder time accepting such explicitly stated left-wing policies, having flipped in 2024 from a redistribution of Conservative stronghold Seats. Perhaps I will be proven wrong, and there is still time for him to convince me too. As of yet though, I remain skeptical; populism does not necessarily equate to popularity.