Despite gaining 9 seats the Tories lost 8 behind them to the Liberals Democrats and one even to Labour.

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.

Following success as the successor to the Whig party, the party's share of the popular vote plummeted after the First World War as it lost votes to the new Labour party and fractured into groups such as the National and Coalition Liberals.

Apart from this, when no party has had a majority, minority governments normally have been formed with one or more opposition parties agreeing to vote for the legislation governments need to function, as the Labour government of James Callaghan formed a coalition with the Liberals in 1977 when it lost its narrow majority gained at the October 1974 election.

While the Liberals lost several seats, they still had 111 more seats than the Tories, enabling them to dominate the Canadian House of Commons.

Many Liberals criticised the Fraser years as " a decade of lost opportunity ," on deregulation of the Australian economy and other issues.

He lost his seat in the 1911 general election, which saw the Conservatives defeat his Liberals.

The Liberals lost the election of 1930 to the Conservative Party, led by Richard Bedford Bennett.

The Liberals lost 118 seats ( leaving them with only 40 ) and their vote count fell by over a million.

( The independent Liberal parliamentary leadership was briefly taken over by the unknown Donald Maclean until Asquith, who had lost his seat like other leading Liberals, returned to the House at a by-election ).

With the emergence of new parties, the Liberals lost its dominant position.

The Liberals increased their large majority mostly at the expense of the NDP, and the Tories under Joe Clark lost many seats and remained in fifth place, but Clark was elected in Calgary Centre in the middle of Alliance country, so the overall political landscape was not significantly changed.

The Stanfield-led Progressive Conservatives lost the 1974 election to the Pierre Trudeau-led Liberals.

Clark's reputation as a leader had taken a beating when, as Prime Minister, he carelessly lost a non-confidence motion over his minority government's budget in December 1979, leading to the fall of his government ; the PCs subsequently lost the federal election held two months later when Trudeau rescinded his announced retirement, and returned to lead the Liberals to a majority.

The Liberals lost 27 seats, including several high-profile cabinet ministers, and Trudeau announced his intention to step down as party leader.

The Liberals lost 13 seats to Labor, led by Steve Bracks, at the 1999 election, most of them in regional centres such as Ballarat and Bendigo.

The Liberals won re-election and Labor lost its slim majority.

In the 1979 election, Sauvé won the riding of Laval-des-Rapides, but the Liberals lost their majority in the commons to the Progressive Conservative Party, and Sauvé thus lost her cabinet position.

The Liberals lost the federal election, of May, 1979 to a minority Conservative government led by Joe Clark.

The Liberals lost power in the 1895 general election and for ten years were in opposition.

By this time, Asquith had become very unpopular with the public ( as Lloyd George was perceived to have " won the war " by displacing him ) and, along with most leading Liberals, lost his seat in the 1918 elections, at which the Liberals split into Asquith and Lloyd George factions.

Asquith again lost his seat in the 1924 election held after the fall of the Labour government — at which the Liberals were reduced to the status of a minor party with only 40 or so MPs.

Truly, that Liberals should choose Louis 14, as a bogey-symbol of conservatism is grotesquely ironic, considering the Louis 14, character of their Grand Monarque, FDR: not only in his accretion of absolute power and personal deification, ( le roi gouverne par lui meme ), but in the disastrous effects of his spending and war policies.

The Liberals won, and Mackenzie remained prime minister until the 1878 election when Macdonald's Conservatives returned to power with a majority government.

While Disraeli's government survived until the December general election, the initiative had passed to the Liberals, who were returned to power with a majority of 170.

The Liberals languished in opposition for a decade, while the coalition of Salisbury and Chamberlain held power.

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.

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

It formed its first government under parliamentarism in 1889, and continued to alternate in power with the Liberals until the 1930s, when Labour became the dominant political party.

The agricultural export interests, centered in the coastal region near Guayaquil, became closely associated with the Liberals, whose political power also grew steadily during the interval.

During the following year, three different men briefly held executive power before Galo Plaza Lasso, running under a coalition of independent Liberals and socialists, narrowly defeated his Conservative opponent in presidential elections.

The 1956 Pipeline Debate led to the widespread impression that the Liberals had grown arrogant in power when the government invoked closure on numerous occasions in order to curtail debate and ensure that its Pipeline Bill passed by a specific deadline.

The party aimed to hold the balance of power in the state " as an independent conservative party " ready to negotiate with the Liberals or Labor to form a minority government.

While the Colorados reinforced their monopoly on power and spoils, Liberals called for reform.

Egusquiza startled Colorado stalwarts by sharing power with the Liberals, a move that split both parties.

After four months of fighting, Ezcurra signed the Pact of Pilcomayo aboard an Argentine gunboat on December 12, 1904, and handed power to the Liberals.

The Liberals had disbanded Caballero's army when they came to power and organized a completely new one.

When Franco ordered Paraguayan troops to abandon the advanced positions in the Chaco that they had held since the 1935 truce, the army revolted in August 1937 and returned the Liberals to power.

In 1939 the Liberals, recognizing that they would have to choose someone with national stature to be president if they wanted to hold onto power, picked General Estigarribia, the hero of the Chaco War who had since served as special envoy to the United States.

The result was the constitution of 1940, which returned to the executive the power that the Liberals had stripped away.

While the Liberals took only two seats from Labor, Askin got the support of the two independent members, Douglas Darby ( Manly ) and Harold Coates ( Hartley ), giving him enough support to end Labor's 24-year run in power.

The Liberals were in power with a progressive alliance of Labour and, off and on, Irish Nationalists.

On May 31, the British general election returned a hung parliament yet again, with the Liberals in position to determine who would have power.

A week after the vote, on June 7 the Conservatives conceded power rather than ally with the Liberals.

* May 31 – The British general election returns a hung parliament yet again ; the Liberals will determine who has power.

In the 1992 state election, the Liberals came to power under Premier Jeff Kennett, who planned to cut the costs of Melbourne's public transport network and remove conductors.

When the National Liberals came to power in Denmark, in 1848, it provoked an uprising of ethnic Germans who supported Schleswig's ties with Holstein.