Ramsay MacDonald was forced into a snap election in 1924, and although his government was defeated, he achieved his objective of virtually wiping the Liberals out as many more radical voters now moved to Labour whilst moderate middle-class Liberal voters concerned about socialism moved to the Conservatives.

The Liberals now found themselves with 59 members holding the balance of power in a Parliament where Labour was the largest party but lacked an overall majority.

Yet there were a few recruits, such as Clement Davies, who had deserted to the National Liberals in 1931 but now returned to the party during the World War II and who would lead it after the war.

The Liberals now held the balance of power in the Commons.

The study finds the term now most likely to be used by Liberals in connection with discussions of Muslim and Islamic inclusion in America, and renewed debate about the separation of church and state.

The Liberals were now better placed to voice their complaints, since they were participating more fully through a variety of voluntary organizations.

Since the disastrous election result in 1924 the Liberals were now very much the third party in British politics, but still Lloyd George was able to release money from his fund to finance candidates and ideas for public works to reduce unemployment ( as detailed in pamphlets such as the " Yellow Book " and the " Green Book ").

In the December 1910 election the Liberals again won, though their majority in the Commons was now dependent on MPs from Ireland, who had their own price ( at the election the Liberal and Conservative parties were exactly equal in size ; by 1914 the Conservative Party was actually larger owing to by-election victories ).

Indeed, Chamberlain now hoped that Balfour would fail in promoting his guarded fiscal doctrine, probably with a strategy of eventually leading the Unionists in opposition to the Liberals on a purely protectionist platform after the expected defeat in the general election.

By now all chance of a reunion between the Liberals and Liberal Unionists had disappeared, and it was no great surprise when leading Liberal Unionists joined Salisbury's new administration in 1895 following the heavy electoral defeat inflicted on the Liberal party.

The Radical Party has now fused with the right-wing Liberals.

Clark was aided in delivering this message by Jack Weisgerber, leader of the BC Reform Party ( the name under which the majority of the Social Credit caucus had rebranded itself ), and Wilson, now leader of the Progressive Democratic Alliance ( PDA ) after being deposed by Campbell as leader of the BC Liberals.

The Conservatives saw their number of seats more than halve, and Arthur Balfour, now as Leader of the Opposition, lost his Manchester East seat to the Liberals.

As had happened under his leadership generally, the Liberals in government appeared now to be enacting progressive liberalism, as opposed to traditional, Gladstonian liberalism which was by now in decline.

After the elections in 1890, the alliance already mentioned between the old " Lantmanna " party and the representatives of the towns had the result that the Liberals in the Second Chamber, to whom the representatives of the towns mostly belonged, were now in a position to decide the policy which the two united parties should follow.

In Law's speech he said " I said so to Liberals and I say so now, with the full sense of the responsibility which attaches to my position, that if the attempt be made under present conditions, I can imagine no length of resistance to which Ulster will go, in which I shall not be ready to support them, and in which they will not be supported by the overwhelming majority of the British people ".

While negotiations occasionally seemed promising, King was unwilling to fully commit to the transfer, possibly because Charles Stewart, now King's Alberta lieutenant, and John R. Boyle, leader of the provincial Liberals, were sworn enemies of the UFA.

That year, the newly established Liberal government of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman called a General Election — resulting in the demolition of the Conservative party ( now in Opposition ) and the landslide affirmation of the Liberals.

Finally, when Gladstone took up Home Rule for Ireland, Lord Granville, whose mind was similarly receptive to new ideas, adhered to his chief ( 1886 ), and gracefully gave way to Lord Rosebery when the latter was preferred to the foreign office ; the Liberals had now realized that they had lost ground in the country by Lord Granville's occupancy of the post.

Redmond ’ s IPP now with 82 seats, at first delighted until the Liberals backed down on Home Rule, knowing it had no chance in the Lords.

With the party now clearly marginalised as the third party on the fringe, with few distinct domestic policies, with a parliamentary party that was primarily a collection of individuals elected as much for themselves as for their party, and with the separate Liberal Nationals offering competition amongst Liberal inclined voters, Sinclair fought to make the Liberals once more a relevant force in British politics, taking up the issues of opposition to the continental dictatorships and working closely with Winston Churchill who was a backbencher at that time and generally shunned by his Conservative Party.

Clearly there will be an effort to try to sure up Nick Clegg ’ s position but I think the idea now that there will be a whole lot of policy concessions allowing the Liberals to look good in the months to come is way, way short of the mark .”

" Maclean's said, the election marked " an unprecedented realignment of Canadian politics " as " the Conservatives are now in a position to replace the Liberals as the natural governing party in Canada.

In March 2009, Handley expressed an interest in running for the Liberals under Michael Ignatieff in the 2011 federal election in the Western Arctic riding.

While Meighen and other Conservatives expressed public outrage at what they viewed as a desperate attempt on the part of King to cling to power, some Conservatives were privately relieved by King's decision ; they seriously doubted whether the Tories could convince the Progressives to support a Conservative government, were confident that King's attempt to remain in power would eventually fail, and thought the expected debacle would be so damaging to the Liberals ' reputation that the Conservatives would then be swept into office with a large majority.

One group under Sir John Simon emerged as the Liberal Nationals who were prepared to accept the tariff and expressed willingness to take the place of the main Liberals in the government.

The Opposition Liberals expressed a desire for the commission to have greater flexibility either in the variance of the average population or in the number of districts.

The sympathy that he expressed for the Agrarians increased his unpopularity among Liberals and industrials ; but he pointed out that the state, which for half a century had done everything to help manufactures, might now attempt to support the failing industry of agriculture.

In an attempt to allay concerns about his being a dangerous leftist ( as Velasco's vice president he had expressed warm sympathy for Cuban leader Fidel Castro Ruz and made a much-criticized trip to the Soviet Union ), Arosemena named a cabinet that included Liberals and even Conservatives and quickly sent former President Galo Plaza on a goodwill trip to Washington.

At the same time, it has not expressed any particular confidence in opposing parties such as the Liberals.

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

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.

In 1841 the Liberals lost office to the Conservative Party under Sir Robert Peel, but their period in opposition was short, because the Conservatives split over the repeal of the Corn Laws, a free trade issue, and a faction known as the Peelites ( but not Peel himself, who died soon after ), defected to the Liberal side.

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

The Liberals were reduced to a mere forty seats in Parliament, only seven of which had been won against candidates from both parties and none of these formed a coherent area of Liberal survival.

In the 1929 general election he made a final bid to return the Liberals to the political mainstream, with an ambitious programme of state stimulation of the economy called We Can Conquer Unemployment !, largely written for him by the Liberal economist John Maynard Keynes.

Lloyd George offered a degree of support to the Labour government in the hope of winning concessions, including a degree of electoral reform to introduce the alternative vote, but this support was to prove bitterly divisive as the Liberals increasingly divided between those seeking to gain what Liberal goals they could achieve, those who preferred a Conservative government to a Labour one and vice-versa.

In doing so the bulk of Liberals remained supporting the government, but two distinct Liberal groups had emerged within this bulk – the Liberal Nationals ( officially the " National Liberals " after 1947 ) led by Simon, also known as " Simonites ", and the " Samuelites " or " official Liberals ", led by Samuel who remained as the official party.

In the 1935 general election, just 17 Liberal MPs were elected, along with Lloyd George and three followers as " independent Liberals ".

Through the 1950s and into the 1960s the Liberals survived only because a handful of constituencies in rural Scotland and Wales clung to their Liberal traditions, whilst in two English towns, Bolton and Huddersfield, local Liberals and Conservatives agreed to each contest only one of the town's two seats.

The agreement lasted from 1977 to 1978, but proved mostly fruitless, for two reasons: the Liberals ' key demand of proportional representation was rejected by most Labour MPs, whilst the contacts between Liberal spokespersons and Labour ministers often proved detrimental, such as between finance spokesperson John Pardoe and Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey, who were mutually antagonistic.

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.

Both the Nationals and Liberals receive Country Liberal Party delegations, and the party president has full voting rights with the National Party and observer status with the Liberal Party.

The DPP is a member of Liberal International and a founding member of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats.