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.

In Central Europe, followed by Great Britain and the United States, Reform Judaism and Liberal Judaism developed, relaxing legal obligations ( especially those that limited Jewish relations with non-Jews ), emulating Protestant decorum in prayer, and emphasizing the ethical values of Judaism's Prophetic tradition.

* How to Read a Book: The Art of Getting a Liberal Education ( 1940 ), 1966 edition subtitled A Guide to Reading the Great Books, 1972 revised edition with Charles Van Doren, The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading: ISBN 0-671-21209-5

In Great Britain the Liberal government of Henry Campbell-Bannerman and David Lloyd George introduced the National Insurance system in 1911, a system later expanded by Clement Attlee.

* Social and Liberal Democrats ( 1988 ), a former name of the Liberal Democrats party in Great Britain

During the Great War the Liberal Party split into those led by former Premier Herbert Henry Asquith and the new Premier David Lloyd George.

Great orators, such as the Liberal David Lloyd George, who spoke against the war, became increasingly influential although pro-war politicians, such as Unionist Joseph Chamberlain, held power.

The Independent Irish Party ( 1852-1858 ) was an Irish political party founded in July 1852 by 40 Liberal Irish MPs who had been elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Watkin served as a Liberal Member of Parliament for the constituencies of Great Yarmouth ( 1857 – 1858 ) Stockport ( 1864 – 1868 ) and later that of Hythe in Kent ( 1874 – 1895 ).

The Quiet Revolution began with the enacted Liberal provincial government of Jean Lesage, who was elected in the June 1960 provincial election and marked the end of Premier Maurice Duplessis ' reign, known by some as the Grande Noirceur ( Great Darkness ) but by others as the last champion of a holy and wholesome Quebec.

In essence, as Prime Minister, Henry Campbell-Bannerman either directly enacted, or laid the groundwork for later developments, in the " Great Liberal Reforms " of the early 20th Century, which effectively represented the emergence of the welfare state within the UK.

The Liberal journalist and friend of Campbell-Bannerman, F. W. Hirst, claimed that Campbell-Bannerman " had not a ghost of a notion that the French Entente was being converted into a ... return to the old balance of power which had involved Great Britain in so many wars on the Continent.

Benjamin Disraeli and William Ewart Gladstone, as leaders of Great Britain's Conservative and Liberal parties, respectively, served as Prime Ministers during the later years of Great Britain's era of reform.

In the aftermath of the military overthrow of Hernando Siles in 1930, largely as a result of the Great Depression, Salamanca was asked to head a Republicano Genuino-Liberal coalition, with him at the head of the ticket and Liberal leader José Luis Tejada as his vice-presidential running mate.

Months later, however, Rutherford and his government were embroiled in the Alberta and Great Waterways Railway scandal, and the Liberal Party was split.

Despite this position, he backed Sifton's 1913 resolution to the Alberta and Great Waterways problem, which involved partnering with the private sector ; this vote marked the first time that the Liberal caucus was united on the railways question since before the scandal broke in 1910.

The Alberta and Great Waterways scandal had opened up a rift in the provincial Liberal Party, between those who remained loyal to Cross and Rutherford and those who did not, with the latter group being led by William Henry Cushing and Frank Oliver.

In 1910, the Liberal government of Alexander Cameron Rutherford was embroiled in the Alberta and Great Waterways ( A & GW ) Railway scandal.

Accusations of favouritism by the government towards the Alberta and Great Waterways Railway had split the Liberal Party, and Rutherford's ability to remain at its head was in doubt.

Early in this new legislative session, however, two signs of trouble appeared: Liberal backbencher John R. Boyle began to ask questions about the agreement between the government and the Alberta and Great Waterways Railway Company, and Cushing resigned from cabinet over his views of this same agreement.

In Great Britain the Liberal government of Henry Campbell-Bannerman and David Lloyd George introduced the National Insurance system in 1911, a system later expanded by Clement Attlee.

Joaquín Sinforiano de Jesús Crespo Torres (; 22 August 1841 – 16 April 1898 ) was a politician, soldier, a member of the Great Liberal Party of Venezuela and President of Venezuela from 1884 to 1886 and again from 1892 to 1898.

Category: Great Liberal Party of Venezuela politicians

The Liberal coalition came to power after Kennedy's assassination in 1963, and launched the Great Society.

The last majority Liberal Government in Britain was elected in 1906.

* Jonathan Parry, The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain.

His greatest achievement, surpassing many of these, was, perhaps, the establishment of a political and economic consensus about the governance of Britain that all parties, whether Labour, Conservative or Liberal subscribed to for three decades, fixing the arena of political discourse until the later 1970s.

It was also the first full coalition in Britain since 1945, having been formed 70 years virtually to the day after the establishment of Winston Churchill's wartime coalition, although there had been the " Lib-Lab pact ", an agreement stopping short of a full coalition between the Labour and Liberal parties, from March 1977 until July 1978, when a series of by-election defeats had eroded Labour's majority of three seats which had been gained at the October 1974 election.

An admirer of Britain's New Liberal philosophy, Hughes campaigned on a platform to improve the state of New York's standard of living by moving it away from laissez-faire tradition and enacting social reforms similar to that which had been enacted in Britain.

" When the Liberal party in Britain came to power in 1906 he was removed.

Britain was neutral at first as the Liberal government had a pacifist tendency, but it was committed to defending Belgium, which Germany invaded.

Three parties currently dominate the national political landscape in Britain: the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, and the Liberal Democrats.

The Reconstruction of Liberal Policy in Britain.

On 24 November, Baldwin consulted the three leading opposition politicians in Britain: Leader of the Opposition Clement Attlee, Liberal leader Sir Archibald Sinclair and Winston Churchill.

Inside Britain there is a ... threat from the Marxist collectivist totalitarians ... Just to state that fact is to be accused of ' union-bashing '... Such people are to be found in the Conservative, Liberal and Labour Parties.

Historically, however, the party has always upheld monarchism and links with Britain ( see the comment by Liberal Prime Minister Menzies above ).

Although Asquith himself was a right-wing Liberal, he continued to work with Lloyd George in setting up unemployment insurance, helping to set the stage for the welfare state in Britain.

This production, while following the spirit and tone of the original series in many respects, was set contemporaneously at Chequers, the Prime Minister's country residence, with BlackBerrys frequently in evidence, and even included a topical reference to a coalition agreement which Sir Humphrey had drafted ( the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats having formed a coalition government in Britain in May 2010 ).

* J Parry, The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain ( Yale University Press, New edition, 1996 )

* Charles Webster, The Foreign Policy of Palmerston, 1830 – 1841: Britain, the Liberal Movement and the Eastern Question ( London: Bell, 1951, 2 volumes ).

On 24 November, Baldwin consulted the three leading opposition politicians in Britain: Leader of the Opposition Clement Attlee, Liberal leader Sir Archibald Sinclair and Winston Churchill.

When Liberal Party came into office in Britain in December 1905 the process was speeded up, with the decision to give both the Transvaal and Orange River colonies self-government without delay.

However, the Liberal Party was later able to unify over its opposition to the Education Act 1902 and the Brussels Sugar Convention of 1902, in which Britain and nine other nations attempted to stabilise world sugar prices by setting up a commission to investigate export bounties and decide on penalties.