All of the 3 main parties saw their total votes fall, with Labour's total vote dropping by 2. 8 million on 1997, the Conservatives 1. 3 million, and the Liberal Democrats 428, 000.

The Liberal Democrats could point to steady progress under Charles Kennedy, gaining more seats than the main two parties – albeit only six overall – and maintaining the performance of a pleasing 1997 election, where the party doubled its number of seats from 20 to 46.

During 1988, the Liberals formally merged with the SDP to form the Liberal Democrats, though a small splinter Liberal Party was formed in 1989 by former members opposed to the merger.

Share of the vote received by Conservatives ( blue ), Whigs / Liberals / Liberal Democrats ( orange ), Labour ( red ) and others ( grey ) in general elections since 1832.

Most SDP members voted in favour of the merger, but SDP leader David Owen objected and continued to lead a " rump " SDP, with the merger of the two parties being completed in March 1988 to form the Social and Liberal Democrats, becoming the Liberal Democrats in October 1989.

In 1988 the Liberals and Social Democrats merged to create what came to be called the Liberal Democrats.

In the 2005 general election, the Liberal Democrats elected 62 MPs to the House of Commons, a far cry from the days when the Liberals had just 5 MPs and Liberalism as a political force had seemed moribund.

As was the case with the Liberal Party for most of the 20th century, the Liberal Democrats face constant questioning about which of the other two parties they are closer to, in particular about which they would support in the event of a hung parliament.

After several days of negotiation, the Liberal Democrats agreed to join the Conservatives as part of a coalition government.

A group of Liberal opponents of the merger with the Social Democrats, including Michael Meadowcroft ( formerly Liberal MP for Leeds West ) and Paul Wiggin ( who served on Peterborough City Council as a Liberal ), continued under the old name of " the Liberal Party ".

This was legally a new organisation ( the headquarters, records, assets and debts of the old party were inherited by the Liberal Democrats ), but its constitution asserts it to be the same Liberal party.

Meadowcroft himself eventually joined the Liberal Democrats in 2007.

After a ballot of members and the passing of a motion at the 1987 Portsmouth conference, the party merged with the Liberal Party in 1988 to form the Liberal Democrats, although a minority left to form a continuing SDP led by David Owen.

* Liberal Democrats Home Affairs spokesman Mark Oaten resigns after it is revealed by the News of the World that he paid rentboys to perform sexual activities on him.

Included are the following: Baptist Student Movement, Canterbury Club ( Episcopal ), Christian Science Organization, Friends' Meeting for Worship, Hillel ( Jewish ), Liberal Religious Fellowship, Lutheran Student Association, Newman Club ( Roman Catholic ), Presbyterian Student Fellowship, United Student Fellowship ( Congregational-Baptist ), and Wesley Fellowship ( Methodist ).

She has only the ability to create a soulless body, and thus she is “ persuaded to undertake the journey to heaven to ask for a soul ,” and “ the Seven Liberal Arts produce a chariot for her ... the Five Senses are the horses ”.

During this time in government, the Liberals are credited with the so-called Liberal Reforms, which saw the creation of a basic welfare state.

In federal Australian politics, the conservative Liberal, National, Country Liberal and Liberal National parties are united in a coalition, known simply as the Coalition.

In Australia, of course, the conservatives are in the Liberal Party.

An enraged Holt interrupted St John's speech, in defiance of the parliamentary convention that maiden speeches are heard in silence ; his blunder embarrassed the government and further undermined Holt's support in the Liberal Party.

Academic areas that are included within the Liberal arts include:

Liberal arts colleges are found in all parts of the world.

Examples of such colleges are Bishop's University in Canada, St. Thomas University in Fredericton, Canada, John Cabot University in Rome, Italy, European College of Liberal Arts in Germany, University College Utrecht in the Netherlands, Foundation for Liberal and Management Education in Pune, India, Campion College in Sydney, Australia and Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco.

In December 2011, Fraser was highly critical of the Australian government's decision ( also supported by the Liberal Party Opposition ) to permit the export of uranium to India, relaxing the Fraser government's policy of banning sales of uranium to countries that are not signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The Nationals hold a larger membership base than either the Liberal or Labor Parties, although in the larger eastern states its vote is in decline and its traditional supporters are turning instead to prominent independents such as Bob Katter, Tony Windsor and Peter Andren in Federal Parliament and similar independents in the Parliaments of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria, many of whom are former members of the National Party.

Notable examples are the International Workingmen's Association ( also called the First International ), the Socialist International ( also called the Second International ), the Communist International ( also called the Third International ), and the Fourth International, as organizations of working class parties, or the Liberal International ( yellow ), Hizb ut-Tahrir, Christian Democratic International and the International Democrat Union ( blue ).

The Socialist International, the Liberal International, and the International Democrat Union are all based in London.

UK Reform and Liberal Judaism are the two Progressive movements in the UK.

For example, the politics of Australia are largely two-party ( if the Liberal Party and National Party are considered the same party at a national level due to their long-standing alliance ) for the Australian House of Representatives, which is elected by Instant Runoff Voting, ( known within Australia as preferential voting ).

A so-called third party in the United Kingdom are the Liberal Democrats.

Liberal arts colleges in the United States like New England College, Wesleyan University, and Bryn Mawr College are now offering complete online degrees in many business curriculae despite the controversy that surrounds the learning method.

Twelve of these seats are held by the Liberal Democrats and three by the Conservatives.

The two dominant political parties in Canada have historically been the Liberal Party of Canada and Conservative Party of Canada ( or its predecessors ), and as of the 2011 election the social-democratic New Democratic Party ( NDP ) has risen to prominence.

The introduction of universal suffrage for men and women favored the Rechtspartei ( party of the Right ), which played the dominant role in the government throughout the 20th century, with the exception of 1925 – 26 and 1974 – 79, when the two other important parties, the Liberal and the Social-Democratic parties, formed a coalition.

The Liberal Party was one of the two dominant parties ( along with the Conservatives ) from its founding until the 1920s, when it rapidly declined and was supplanted on the left by the Labour Party, which was founded in 1900 and formed its first government in 1924.

Since that time, the Labour and Conservatives parties have been dominant, with the Liberal Democrats also holding a significant number of seats and increasing their share of the vote in parliamentary general elections in the four elections 1992.

The Liberal Party of Australia went on to become the dominant centre-right party in Australian politics.

Keynes was a lifelong member of the Liberal party, which until the 1920s had been one of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom, and as late as 1916 had often been the dominant power in government.

The Labour Party replaced the Liberal Party as the dominant political force in the 1940s, while the nationalist party Plaid Cymru gained momentum in the 1960s.

The Liberal Unionists managed to stay strong in the south-west of England, the West Midlands ( the centre of Chamberlain's power base ), and especially in Scotland, where the Liberal Unionists were initially the more dominant group in their alliance with the Scottish Conservatives against the Liberals.

The Australian Labor Party was established in the 1890s and the Liberal Party of Australia in 1944, both rising to be the dominant political parties and rivals of Australian politics, though various other parties have been and remain influential.

The Liberal split made the Unionists ( the Liberal Unionists sat in coalition with the Conservatives after 1895 and would eventually merge with them ) the dominant force in British politics until 1906, with strong support in Lancashire, Liverpool & Manchester, Birmingham ( the fiefdom of its former mayor Joseph Chamberlain who as recently as 1885 had been a furious enemy of the Conservatives ) and the House of Lords where many Whigs sat ( a second Home Rule Bill would pass the Commons in 1893 only to be overwhelmingly defeated in the Lords ).

Austen Chamberlain was born in Birmingham, the second child and eldest son of Joseph Chamberlain, then a rising industrialist and political radical, later Mayor of Birmingham and a dominant figure in Liberal and Unionist politics at the end of the 19th century.

His followers gathered in the Liberal Party, which, despite Venizelos ' dominant status, constituted the first true party in the modern sense, in that it was formed around a progressive, liberal and pro-republican political agenda.

Jenkins argues that empathy only enjoys such a privileged position in the present because it corresponds harmoniously with the dominant Liberal discourse of modern society and can be connected to John Stuart Mill's concept of reciprocal freedom.

As a result of western alienation both the dominant Conservative and Liberal parties were challenged in the west by the rise of a number of protest parties including the Progressive Party of Canada, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation ( CCF ), the Reconstruction Party of Canada and the Social Credit Party of Canada.

The Liberal Party took Ontario, the Maritimes and the territories, the separatist Bloc Québécois took Quebec, while the Reform Party took Western Canada and became the dominant conservative party in Canada.

Though his party was effectively gone, Santamaria and his National Civic Council took a strong diametrically opposed stance to dominant neoliberal / New Right tendencies within both the ALP and Liberal parties throughout the eighties and early nineties.

Prior to this, the only Tory / Conservative party in Scotland was the official Conservative Party, which had never achieved parity with the dominant Whig and Scottish Liberal Party ascendancy since the election reforms of 1832.

On the right the table shows the number of seats won by the four most dominant parties in New Zealand's history ( the Liberal Party and the Reform Party, which later merged to form the National Party, and the Labour Party ), as well as the number won by other candidates ( either independents or members of smaller political parties ).

The Liberal government that was dominant 1891-1912 rejected socialism but it supported unions and the First Liberal Government of New Zealand set up the country's welfare state in the 1890s and fought the large land holders.

Beyond that, political scientists often consider this election that made the Liberal Party the dominant force in Canadian politics, holding office for more than two thirds of the time between 1896 and 2006.

Consequently, these locally dominant regional groups — effectively the gaúchos of Rio Grande do Sul and the sugar barons of the Northeast — themselves ushered the new urban groups into the forefront of Brazilian political life in a revolution from above, tilting the balance of the central government in favor of the Liberal Alliance.