In the later 19th century the issue of Irish Home Rule led to a split among the Liberals, with a minority breaking away to form the Liberal Unionists in 1886.

The president used his new power to resolve a crisis of government in May 1921, naming a liberal government ( the Liberal party being the result of the postwar fusion of Evolutionists and Unionists ) to prepare the forthcoming elections.

William Gladstone's announcement of a determination to bring about Irish Home Rule later led to Chamberlain leaving the Liberals to form the Liberal Unionists.

Labour had already lost its majority in the House of Commons when he became Prime Minister and lost further seats at by-elections and through defections, forcing Callaghan to deal with minor parties such as the Liberal Party especially in the Lib-Lab pact from 1977 to 1978, the Ulster Unionists, Scottish National Party and even Independents.

From the 1895 general election the Liberal Unionists were in coalition with the Conservative Party, under Chamberlain's former opponent Lord Salisbury.

On 9 April, Chamberlain spoke against the Irish Home Rule Bill in its first reading before attending a meeting of Liberal Unionists, summoned by Hartington, hitherto the subject of Chamberlain's anti-Whig declarations on 14 May.

Parliament was dissolved, and in the ensuing general election, the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists agreed to a defensive alliance.

The Conservatives and Liberal Unionists took 393 seats in the House of Commons and a comfortable majority.

The appointment of Goschen to the Treasury isolated Chamberlain further and symbolised the good relationship between non-Radical Liberal Unionists and the Conservatives.

In the 1892 general election, the Liberal Unionists won most of the city, even winning elections in neighbouring towns in the Black Country.

With Gladstone returned to power and unwilling to see Chamberlain back with the Liberal Party, and the Liberal Unionists reduced to 47 seats nationwide, a closer relationship with the Conservatives was necessary.

When Hartington took his seat in the House of Lords as the Duke of Devonshire, Chamberlain was able to assume the leadership of the Liberal Unionists in the House of Commons, resulting in a productive relationship with Balfour, leader of the Conservatives in the Commons.

Having agreed to a set of policies, the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists formed a government on 24 June 1895.

Salisbury offered four Cabinet posts to Liberal Unionists.

Controversy ensued over the use of the phrase " Every seat lost to the government is a seat sold to the Boers " as the Unionists waged a personalised campaign against Liberal critics of the war – some posters even portrayed Liberal MPs praising President Kruger and helping him to haul down the Union Jack.

Chamberlain was aware that the Bill's proposals would estrange Nonconformists, Radicals and many Liberal Unionists from the government, but could not oppose it as he owed his position as Colonial Secretary to Conservative support.

Thus, Chamberlain had to make the best of a hopeless situation, writing fatalistically that ' I consider the Unionist cause is hopeless at the next election, and we shall certainly lose the majority of the Liberal Unionists once and for all.

Chamberlain asserted his authority over the Liberal Unionists soon after Devonshire's departure.

With the Unionists divided and out of favour with many of their former supporters, the Liberal Party won the 1906 general election by a landslide, with the Unionists reduced to just 157 seats in the House of Commons.

He opposed Liberal proposals to remove the House of Lords ' veto, and gave his blessing to the Unionists to fight in order to oppose Home Rule for Ireland.

The Liberal Unionists owe their origins to the conversion of William Ewart Gladstone to the cause of Irish Home Rule ( i. e. limited self government for Ireland ).

Seeing themselves as defenders of the Union, they called themselves ' Liberal Unionists ' though at this stage most of them did not think it was going to be a permanent split from their former colleagues.

More temperately than in the study of Grey and despite his Liberal bias, Trevelyan vividly sketches the England of pre-French Revolution days, portrays the stresses and strains of the revolutionary period in rich colors, and brings developments leading to the Reform Bill into sharp and clear focus.

The soldiers, veterans, students, and others who revolted felt, however, that victory had come despite the Liberal government.

The Coalition lost five seats, despite a small swing of 0. 16 % and the Coalition gaining the support of prominent media businessman, Frank Packer, who helped project the image of Askin and the Liberal party as a viable alternative government.

However, despite this the Coalition went to a record fourth win against the ALP of Pat Hills, increasing the Liberal / Country majority by four seats, and making Askin the only Premier to win four consecutive terms.

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.

Following the defeat of the longstanding Liberal government in 1982, Kennett was the leading candidate to replace Lindsay Thompson, and on 26 October, he was elected Leader of the Liberal Party, despite being the youngest member of the outgoing Cabinet.

Jack Lang's victory in Reid was unexpected ; he was elected on a minority of the votes thanks to preferences given to him by the Liberal Party In federal parliament, he is often cited as being the most effective of the opposition to the government of his old rival, Prime Minister Ben Chifley, despite voting for the latter's Bank Act in 1947.

The Conservatives have had an overall majority on the council since 1978, despite demographics that would suggest a higher level of support for Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

After the 1911 elections netted a massive landslide for the Liberals, Gustaf appointed Liberal leader Karl Staaff as Prime Minister, despite his own conservative predispositions.

The PQ won another term in the 1998 election, despite receiving fewer votes than the Quebec Liberal Party led by Jean Charest.

Devonshire died in 1908 but, despite the loss of the party's two most famous standard bearers, the Liberal Unionists were still able to increase their parliamentary representation in the two 1910 General Elections to 32 and then 36 MPs.

After the Unionists had failed to win an electoral mandate at either of the General Elections of 1910 ( despite softening the Tariff Reform policy with Balfour's promise of a referendum on food taxes ), the Unionist peers split to allow the Parliament Act to pass the House of Lords, in order to prevent a mass-creation of new Liberal peers by the new King, George V. The exhausted Balfour resigned as party leader after the crisis, and was succeeded in late 1911 by Andrew Bonar Law.

The Liberal Democrats are the dominant political party in Cirencester, gaining 9 out of the 10 Cirencester seats available on Cotswold District Council in May 2011, despite this the Conservative Party still have an overall majority on the District Council.

During the Liberal Triennium he supported the liberals despite his absolutist convictions, because he was against French intervention.

A plenipotentiary to the Congress of Verona ( 1822 ), he decided in favor of the Quintuple Alliance intervention in Spain during the Trienio Liberal, despite opposition from the Duke of Wellington.

Dabbling in politics, despite his family's Liberal Party sympathies, he ended up working as secretary to the London Conservative group of MPs in the United Kingdom general election, 1922.

The ' English School ' of international relations theory, also known as International Society, Liberal Realism, Rationalism or the British institutionalists, maintains that there is a ' society of states ' at the international level, despite the condition of ' anarchy ' ( literally the lack of a ruler or world state ).

Meanwhile, the Liberal army had suffered a sound defeat at Alcácer do Sal, which proved that, despite the Duke of Terceira's recent march from Faro to Lisbon, the south was still loyal to the Miguelites.

Clark called an election in 1996 in which his party narrowly won a majority of seats, despite receiving fewer votes across the province than the second-place BC Liberal Party.

The new Prime Minister, a Liberal named Henry Campbell-Bannerman, immediately dissolved Parliament and forced a general election in which, despite strong campaigning and a visit by Arthur Balfour, Law lost his seat.

A system where only 3 parties have a realistic possibility of winning an election or forming a coalition is sometimes called a " Third-party system ", however in some cases the system is called a " Stalled Third-Party System " when there are 3 parties in the system, and all 3 parties win a large number of votes, however only 2 have a chance of winning a general election ; this is usually because the electoral system penalises the third party e. g. UK politics, the Liberal Democrats gained 23 % of the vote in 2010 elections but won less than 10 % of the seats due to the First-Past-The-Post electoral system, however despite this they still have enough seats ( and enough public support ) for the other major 2 parties to form coalitions with them or make deals with the third party so to gain their support e. g. Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition formed after the 2010 general election and the Lib-Lab pact during Prime Minister James Callaghan's Minority Labour Government when Labour lost its 3 seat majority in 1977, the pact fell short of a full coalition.

They were joined in this by the Liberals, despite the fact that it was a Liberal act that had been co-authored by Boyle.

In the 1913 election, Rutherford was again nominated as the Liberal candidate in Edmonton South ( Strathcona had been amalgamated into Edmonton in 1912 ), despite pledging opposition to the Sifton government and offering to campaign around the province for the Conservatives if they agreed not to run a candidate against him.