Talk:Liberal Democrats (UK)/Archive 6

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Ideology

Hi, I'm not from the UK and was reading this article to get to know more on the Lib Dem's ideology. Apart from the fact there are two 'strands' in the party, there isn't that much information. My question: What are some major differences between the classical liberal strand of the Lib Dem's (Orange Book ?) and the Conservative party? For I know, the Conservative party is a descendant from the National Liberal Party as well? For exemple: are the Lib Dem's more secular than conservatives? Or in favor of gay rights (in contrast to conservatives)? I don't know, but I would like to. Anyone from the UK, who could write a word about this? Wormke-Grutman (talk) 11:13, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Hi, the talk page is for discussion of edits to the article, for general discussion, please use Wikipedia:Reference desk in the future. I'll reply on your personal talk page for now.--Jay942942 (talk) 10:46, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Centre? I think Centre Left better describes the party in the info box

I don't think anyone considers the Lib Dems a centrist party anymore. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.76.154.28 (talk) 12:35, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

You need to back-up your comment with reliable references/source and not your own personal point of view - see WP:POV. Also please sign your comments before placing them. Thank you, David J Johnson (talk) 16:13, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Article's name: why not UK?

I was wondering... we have Conservative Party (UK) and Labour Party (UK), thus why do we have "Liberal Democrats" and not "Liberal Democrats (UK)"? As long as there are several "Conservative" and "Labour" parties in the world, there are other parties named "Liberal Democrats". Before proposing a requested move, I would like to hear some opinions in order to understand whether the proposal might receive support or not. --Checco (talk) 19:05, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Are any of the other parties major ones? (Genuine question) Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 23:21, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

The Lib Dems are unique in calling themselves the "Liberal Democrats" as opposed to the "Liberal Democratic Party" (notable in Japan and Russia), so this title seems fine to me. Mélencron (talk) 23:54, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

There are actually some parties named "Liberal Democrats", but they are minor ones, indeed. --Checco (talk) 08:14, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

I would find renaming the article as "Liberal Democrats (UK)" perfectly acceptable. I think in this case the precedent the current article name is New Democratic Party, where the subject of the article (a Canadian federal party) is the most well-known and significant party of that name, and the only one with that name natively in English.--Autospark (talk) 15:46, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 24 March 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved, based on strength of argument not vote counting. Although many editors claimed (many without justification) that the UK political party is the primary topic this was successfully refuted by others. It may be the most common current use but consensus is that it is not "more likely than all the other topics combined", especially when you take historical uses into account. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:42, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

---

Liberal Democrats → Liberal Democrats (UK) – There is a few parties named "Liberal Democrats" in the world and, while the British one is the best known, "Liberal Democrats" should be a disambiguation or a redirect as Social Democrats, Democratic Socialists, Christian Democrats, Liberal Democratic Party, Labour Party, Conservative Party, etc. Secondly, there should be consistency with Conservative Party (UK) and Labour Party (UK). -- Checco (talk) 09:58, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support for the reasons explained above. --Checco (talk) 09:58, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose clear lead in page views, this is what most are looking up when people type into search. Title has been stable since 2010, and long-term significance could scarcely be disputed. Ribbet32 (talk) 01:17, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
  • @Ribbet32 two points:

1. Your claim that long-term significance could scarcely be disputed is risible. "Liberal democrats" refers to adherents of the the political ideology of liberal democracy, which is at least two hundred years old. However, the UK political party took its name in late 1989, less than 28 years ago. On a long-term significance test, the UK party is a complete non-starter.
2. your data table is highly misleading, because it omits two other important uses of the term: adherents of liberal democracy, and liberal members of the Democratic Party (United States). Here's are more complete viewing figures:
   • Pageviews including the term "liberal democracy": the UK party gets about 40% of pageviews
   • Include both liberal democracy and Democratic Party (United States): the UK party gets about 11% of pageviews.

Of course, not all of those interested in the Democratic Party (United States) were looking for liberal democrats. But if even 15% of them were looking for that topic, then that would be same number as the total count of pageviews for the UK party. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:03, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Three pings and the inflammatory "nonsense of the highest order" shows you're abnormally interested in picking a fight with me. Three decades of major political party status is long-term significance. The U.S. Democratic party (no "liberal" in its name) and liberal democracy, along with the other political parties, all have names distinct from "Liberal Democrats". It is reasonable to think "Liberal Democrats", with the caps, would primarily refer to this party. Given my hectic situation in RL, responding to your trolling is not a priority. Ribbet32 (talk) 19:09, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Ribbet32, I am sorry that RL is taking a toll on you, but I was unaware of that. This is a reasoned discussion rather than a vote, and the normal practice of a reasoned discussion is that people consider other points made, and reply to each other. I am sorry that you are unfamiliar with this, and confuse it with trolling.

Your point about the names of the other articles is based on a common but fundamental misunderstanding of the policy WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. The subsection WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT is explicit that the names of other articles is irrelevant: the fact that an article has a different title is not a factor in determining whether a topic is primary.

Given that clear principle in policy, you claim of long-term significance amounts to claiming that a 28-year history is somehow longer-term than the longer history of the other parties referred to in reliable sources as "Liberal Democrats" or the lower-case "liberal democrats" who follow the ideology or the liberal Democrats in the USA. That's why I called it "nonsense of the highest order", and I am sorry that your lack of awareness of the underlying policy led you to regard this as some sort of attempt to pick a fight. In future I will take care to spell out the policy basis more clearly. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:46, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose by far the biggest party named Liberal Democrats (as opposed to Liberal Democratic Party) Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 09:37, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose Same reasons as Absolutelypuremilk. David J Johnson (talk) 11:11, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support based on reasons given by Checco: "Liberal Democrats" is a generic political term or political party name – "Liberal Democrats (UK)" disambiguates to a specific political party.--Autospark (talk) 14:24, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - primary topic by miles. Unreal7 (talk) 20:50, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose: clear WP:PRIMARY, only one other party in the world called the Liberal Democrats which is an Italian political party which does not even qualify for 'minor party' status as it has no seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate, or the European Parliament. Ebonelm (talk) 00:03, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose, clearly WP:PTOPIC based on traffic and common sense (use of "Lib Dems" as opposed to LDP largely unique to the Lib Dems, and you know which ones I'm talking about) Mélencron (talk) 00:31, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support, for two reasons:

1. The uncapitalised form "liberal democrats" is a generic term for adherents of the political ideology of liberal democracy. The nominator tried to convey this point, but expressed it badly.
2. The capitalised "Liberal Democrats" is a common descriptor for members of political parties of various similar names, including the Liberal Democratic Party (Japan), which has dominated Japanese politics for 60 years. See for example The New York Times referring to the Japanese party as "Liberal Democrats".
   Note that "liberal Democrats" is also very widely used to describe liberal-inclined members of the US.S. Democratic Party.

Most of the oppose !votes are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the policy at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Those !voters assume wrongly that test is primacy between other articles named "Liberal Democrats", which is very clearly not the case. As WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT makes clear, "the title of the primary topic article may be different from the ambiguous term". This is the case for others similar political terms. For example social democrats redirects to social democracy.

@Ribbet32 claims above that the UK party is primary topic because its long-term significance could scarcely be disputed. This is demonstrably nonsense of a high order. The UK party took its current name in October 1989, but the history of liberal democracy predates that by at least 200 years, as does the use of the term "liberal democrats" to describe its adherents.

Here is some search data for "liberal democrats":

• JSTOR search: 1,517 hits before end of August 1989
• New York Times:

• All hits for "Liberal Democrats" since 1851: "liberal democrats" 6,452
• All hits for "Liberal Democrats" up to end of August 1989: 3,468

In other words, more than half of the NYT hits for the term predate the UK party's use of it as their name. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:23, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support This is a common-sense move. All other main British and American political parties, even ones with the highest view count, such as Democratic Party (US) and Conservative Party (UK) have some form of disambiguation. The view count is not incredibly lop-sided as to make an unambiguous primary topic. In fact, on many days, depending on the news cycle, pages about Liberal Democrat parties in Japan, Russia and Australia have all been the most viewed. I completely endorse the very good fact-based arguments made above by BrownHairedGirl. "Liberal Democrats" is a very plausible search topic for liberal democracy and for articles about liberal members of the Democratic Party (US). AusLondonder (talk) 07:41, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support because while the Liberal Democrats of the UK is by far the largest political party of this name, there are many others. As stated above by AusLondonder, the size of the party is not important. There should be consistency with the other major political parties of the UK, both of which have "(UK)" at the end. Cran32 (talk) 22:46, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support per BHG. No primary topic. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 00:52, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose, it's got a solid majority of the views for this particular term, making a good case this is the Primary Topic. As a side comment, I disagree with two points made by supporters: A) Almost nobody refers to the LDP of Japan as the "Liberal Democrats." They're just the LDP, or Liberal Democratic Party, not Liberal Democrats or Democratic Party or Liberal Party. B) The fact that other political parties frequently have disambiguation isn't cause to put unneeded disambiguation everywhere. We don't move Earth to Earth (planet) to go in solidarity with Mercury (planet) if it isn't needed. SnowFire (talk) 17:51, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
  • @SnowFire: That's the first time that I have ever seen a newspaper of the stature of the New York Times referred to as "almost nobody". Their website search gives "liberal democrats" japan 1215 hits for "liberal democrats" japan. Similary a Google search for usage in the Washington Post gives 128 hits. Of course, some of those hits use "liberal democrats" to refer to not to Japan, but to liberal members of the US Democratic Party, which is another area of ambiguity.
    The pageview stats posted at the top by Ribbet32 are misleading, because they omit both liberal democracy and US Democrats. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:56, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support. I came here expecting to oppose, but a closer look at the evidence suggests that the British party isn't clearly the primary topic of the term "Liberal Democrats". As BrownHairedGirl says, "Liberal Democrats" is in widespread use in English sources for Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) (Japan's long-term dominant political party); the same is also true for the Liberal Democratic Party (Australia) as can be seen through a cursory Google News search.[1]. There is also some risk of confusion with the liberal wing of the U.S. Democratic Party (the party's largest wing), frequently referred to as "liberal Democrats".[2] On the whole, it doesn't appear that this particular party is the obvious primary topic.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:50, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - By far this article is the PRIMARYTOPIC and even the nominator himself has stated and I quote "while the British one is the best known" - So there we are the nominator has answered his own question and so have the majority of other editors here. –Davey2010^Talk 22:55, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
  • This oppose, like several others, is based on the erroneous assumption that a primary topic is chosen only from amongst the set of topics whose Wikipedia article has the same name. The policy specifies the precise opposite of that, at WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT: "the title of the primary topic article may be different from the ambiguous term". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:43, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

    No, the oppose makes no such assumption. It simply says it's the primary topic for this term, which it is. I would assume through WP:AGF that Davey2010 is aware that other titles may be contenders, their comment doesn't say otherwise.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:45, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

    I read Davey2010's statement differently. Please would Davey clarify which set of topics they are comparing, and on what evidence they assert the primacy of the UK party?
    Right now, all we have from Davey2010 is an unevidenced assertion about an unspecified set of topics. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:24, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

• Support. The Japanese political party is more significant than the British political party. feminist 11:11, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. The case of the Japanese party is an interesting one, but ultimately SnowFire refutes this argument the best. The Japanese party simply aren't referred to as the "Liberal Democrats" except in a few odd places here and there (such as the NYT op-ed mentioned above). That's not enough to make it a legitimate contender for the capitalised title here, which predominantly refers to the UK party. As, indeed is the case even when you search for that specific term on the NYT itself. Most usages in that list are for the UK party, with only one or two for Japan. Between page views and common usage, there is a very clear primary topic here, and it is the current article.  — c (talk) 11:40, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
  • @Amakuru: your link lists 100 results. I count 28 of them as referring to the UK party. That is clearly not a primary topic. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:21, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
  • As to page views, see my evidence above in reply to Ribbet32's comment near the top. So far as I can see, the UK party is primary in page views only if we take the bizarre step of omitting from the comparison both the lowercase "liberal democrats" (adherents of liberal democracy) and the hugely singificant "liberal Democrats" (liberal supporters of the US Democratic Party). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:29, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

The purpose of my link to Google was to show primacy of the one topic. Look at the top entries in the list, not the ones near the bottom. And I'm sorry, but I don't think we should be including "liberal Democrats" in the reckoning. We don't have redirects for Conservative Republicans or other random combinations of adjective and noun that may sometimes be used. Liberal Republicans is a redirect to Liberal Republican Party (United States), but by your logic it should be a dab page just in case someone wanted to see something about liberal people in the GOP. The fact is, that nobody looking for the Japanese party or the US Democrats is going to type "Liberal Democrats" into the search box. I know we can't prove this one way or the other, but I would certainly hazard that the vast majority typing "Liberal Democrats" (with a capital D) will be looking for the UK party, which is the whole point of having a primary topic.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:04, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

So you want the decision to based on the claim you would certainly hazard ... in other words, on your unevidenced opinion. A claim for primary topic topic needs to be based on much more solid evidence than mere ex-cathedra pronouncements.

As to the request that I should look near the top of the list, rather than the bottom: why? Whatever your presumptions about Google's ranking of search results, I see no evidence to support them, nor any precedent for prioritsing them over numbers.

As you assertion that The fact is, that nobody looking for the Japanese party or the US Democrats is going to type "Liberal Democrats" into the search box ... no, that's not a fact at all. That's just your evidence-free projection of your own sense of priorities. I might as well pronounce that "the fact is, Amakuru is just a meatpuppet for the UK LibDem party". My absolute zero evidence for that proposition is exactly the same as your zero evidence for your claim. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:36, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I would seriously challenge the claim that the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party aren't known as "Liberal Democrats". Within the New York Times alone, dozens of uses are easily found.[3][4][5][6][7] Additionally, "Liberal Democrats" Japan returns 19,600 Google Books hits including high quality sources such as these:[8][9][10][11][12][13] "Liberal Democrats" Russia gets 11,300 results, "Liberal Democrats" Italy gets 9,270, "Liberal Democrats" Australia gets 4,740, "Liberal Democrats" Croatia get 1,990, and "Liberal Democrats" "United States" gets 34,600 (many of course are hits for non-American parties, but most are for the Liberal faction of the U.S. Democrats). By comparison, "Liberal Democrats" UK gets 36,800 hits, which even discounting the United States search is not significantly more than the other topics combined.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:46, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

So by your own admission, the Japanese party (which has been in power for donkey's years) gets far fewer results than the UK Liberal Democrats (a smaller third party with only a much more recent history), and furthermore, the Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) article does not contain the text "Liberal Democrats" anywhere within the article. Yet you argue they vie for primacy for this term? I don't really understand that, I'm afraid. What purpose is served by making this move? How will it help our readers? Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 17:04, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm arguing that there is no primary topic. The Japanese party, the Russian party, etc., are known by the phrase "Liberal Democrats" enough that no one use exceeds all others combined; the British party is not the clear leader of the pack either in terms of use or long-term significance.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:41, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Official template colour

The current template uses #FDBB30 as the template colour, which is a yellow/amber colour. The new 2017 style guide for the party found here adopts #FAA61A, a more orange shade, as the new official colour. I believe a template change is required to address this. JackWilfred (talk) 14:48, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

I'll make an edit request at Template talk:Liberal Democrats (UK)/meta/color which is where the colour is maintained. DuncanHill (talk) 15:09, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

It has now been changed. It may take some time for articles using this template to catch up, a dummy edit will force an update. DuncanHill (talk) 16:37, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

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Pro europeanism - ideology?

The ideology page on Wikipedia states that criteria for ideology can be quite flexible, and that parties and their strategies or what they are based around may be considered ideology. Therefore, as the most vocally mainstream pro eu party in the uk, why should it be the case that the lib dems defining feature of " pro europeanism" is not mentioned and keeps getting taken down? The Wikipedia page is meant to be informative - I think that pro europeanism should be mentioned. There are other parties with " pro europeanism" as an ideology - some parties in relation to the EU have their " euroscepticism" as a defining ideology. The fact that " pro europeanism" keeps on getting edited on and then removed is concerning - especially without discussion, hence why I am opening up this talk! I will add pro europeanism with citations back onto the page, but I would be interested to hear other people's thoughts on the matter. Greenleader (talk) 15:09, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

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Centre or Centre-left in Infobox.

It's confusing and misleading to have both, because you can only be one or the other. Centre to Centre-left implies there is some kind of 'Centre-half-left' which there isn't.  — Calvin999 10:31, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

A toughie, to be sure: the citations seem to support both. For the sake of WP:NPOV I think leaving it as it is would be best. It's confusing, certainly (as you say, it implies some kind of centre half left), but at the same time it doesn't seem to be unambiguously one or the other. Perhaps not the most satisfying answer, but I think leaving both given that they are cited and letting the reader make their own mind up might be the best course of action. — Richard BB 10:50, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't think it's confusing at all. The left-right political axis doesn't have fixed positions which must be adhered to. The "centre to centre-left" is also used on Liberal Party of Canada while "centre to centre-right" is used by the Free Democratic Party (Germany), so it's not uncommon. Given that there are adequate sources for both positions, I think it should remain as it is. Tannlos (talk) 10:53, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Those are weak examples, IMO – the "centre" for the German FDP is far less referenced than centre-right, and not really true. Remember that some parties tend to prefer being considered centrist, even if they may be on the centre-right or centre-left. (I'd argue that the LPC is centrist, incidentally.)--Autospark (talk) 16:33, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree that it's confusing. Ciudadanos had a silly compromise of "Centre-left to centre-right" that was even worse. If people are divided on which side of the spectrum they fall but agree they're generally quite moderate overall then they're centrist. The very idea that a party can't be "Centre" seems to stem from a personal opinion of some that the centre ground doesn't exist. It does - we have an article on it and it's a perfectly valid thing to say here in the absence of anything else. Maswimelleu (talk) 12:41, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

I'd prefer centre-left in the Infobox (because IMO it is more accurate), but would have no qualms about centre. Whichever one, we need to stick with one – "centre to centre-left" is either redundant or misleading depending on one's opinion on the matter.--Autospark (talk) 14:12, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

I really don't see why we must stick with just one. As I said above, the left-right political axis doesn't have fixed positions which must be adhered to. Both positions have two references each, which is more than enough reason for it to remain as it is. Tannlos (talk) 14:27, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Just to add, the Political compass site sees them as centre-right. --RaviC (talk) 12:29, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

The Political Compass is a self-published website, and the 'analysis' on the page that you linked to comes across as a polemic rather than an objective treatise on the LibDems and other UK parties. Also, the page does not use the term "centre-right" in its text, and if anything it places the LibDems as equidistant between the Labour and Con parties.--Autospark (talk) 14:14, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Centre Left party for me. Looks ridiculous as it is.. Reaper7 (talk) 16:20, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Classical liberal

The party shouldn't be described as classical liberal. The sources cited for its being classical liberal come from the coalition era. With the Orange Bookers out of fashion and the party now pursuing centre-left policies (NHS tax), I'd say these sources can now be considered outdated.

This isn't to deny that the party has a sizeable classical liberal faction. That is handled well in the article already. But it doesn't mean the party as a whole can be considered classical liberal. Matt 190417 (talk) 11:21, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I am unfamiliar with the exact recommendations about what should be included in this section of the infobox. Is it specifically only about how the party leadership is labelled by commentators; or how the party would describe itself; or how the entire party would be described? Or can it be used to note major ideologies within the party, on the basis that no party will ever be in complete agreement about anything?

For instance, the Labour article describes one of the party's ideologies as being 'democratic socialism'. While that is probably a good description of Corbyn and McDonnell, I doubt you could reasonably call much of the PLP (and therefore the party as a whole) 'socialist' in anything but the broadest and vaguest sense. Again, I don't know what exactly the criteria should be for inclusion in this section, or how that particular decision was made.

I had a look through relevant pages/talk pages but have been unable to find much mention of established policy/consensus related to this matter. I may have just been looking in the wrong place. It's the sort of thing that is likely to be very contentious, so I imagine there should be some stated policies on it somewhere. BubbleEngineer (talk) 12:11, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I recognise that this is difficult, open to interpretation, not well documented, and the Liberal Democrats will probably shy away from claiming anything of the sort, especially given the intraparty fissures on the matter. But unless newer sources can be furnished claiming that the party is classical liberal, I would avoid readding the label. I must admit I am also unfamiliar with what should be added into the infobox.

As aforementioned, there is a significant classical liberal wing in the party, and this is documented well in the entry already. Two articles I found which might be interpreted to support my position: (1) and (2). Both articles seem to suggest that classical liberalism is something to which the Liberal Democrats should consider aspiring, or a tradition in need of revival. Both are more recent sources than the books previously cited for classical liberalism. Matt 190417 (talk) 14:49, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

The LibDems aren't a classical liberal party. While the party may have some classical liberal heritage from the roots in the Liberal Party (which arguably had moved away from classical liberalism by the time of the Liberal welfare reforms), it's rather an exaggeration to describe classical liberalism as a key plank of the party's ideology and factions. (IMO I would just leave the Ideology section of the Infobox just as "social liberalism" – a perfectly succinct description of the party's ideology since its foundation.)--Autospark (talk) 22:36, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Both the references provided by Matt are to web sites so I'm afraid they don't count. We need to run with what sources say. Its arguable that in the coalition this was dominant and the fact that in a rump opposition some say otherwise is not yet significant enough. I'm open to a simple label per Autospark if it can be sourced -----Snowded ^TALK 06:49, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

We already have sources for social liberalism in the infobox. I don't think anybody is disputing that we could have described the party as classical liberal during the coalition era, which is when the sources claiming that the party is classical liberal date to. I'm not sure exactly what sort of source you expect to count for my position, though: there is no definitive register of ideologies which will explicitly say that the party is not classical liberal. At best all we can hope for is an omission of classical liberalism. I agree we can define the party as social liberal. But I think we can remove classical liberal from the infobox, given the date of the existing sources and my links to newer commentary suggesting that the party is not classical liberal. Matt 190417 (talk) 07:01, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Another source suggesting the party is not classical liberal: (3) Matt 190417 (talk) 07:06, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Slightly less convincing, but again: (4) p74: "Many classical liberals in recent decades have probably felt more at home with a Thatcherite Conservative Party than with the British Liberals and subsequently Liberal Democrats." Matt 190417 (talk) 07:14, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Please read up on realiable sources your first one one here is just a general article with the US focus so use of that would be original research, the other fails on links so I can't check it. We meed specific sources which address the Liberal Democrat Party in the UK. Your opinions and commentary are simply not enough we need sources -----Snowded ^TALK 09:41, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I think you're being far too stringent. I have already said that this is not the sort of thing that is well documented: reliable sources on this are hard to come by. Of course the party won't dictate its ideology like this, let alone a change in ideology, and this is (to some extent) subjective and open to interpretation. I recognise that my sources aren't golden, but it's only because of the difficulty of finding any source that will say "this party was classical liberal until this time, after which it was not classical liberal". Hence, some leniency ought to be applied to the reliable sources criteria. My sources were collected by a simple Google search of '"liberal democrats" "classical liberalism"'. Most of the relevant search results date pre-2015, but I haven't seen any post-2015 result describing the Liberal Democrats as classical liberal, and only the aforementioned results suggesting that the party isn't. And again, while the party has a sizeable classical liberal faction, which is already well documented in the entry I think it is beyond opinion that the party as a whole cannot be described as classical liberal. Matt 190417 (talk) 10:08, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

We need to be stringent on political articles. If you view was correct then there would be newspaper article or similar made the point. If not its just an editors opinion -----Snowded ^TALK 11:03, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps Economic liberalism is a slightly better label? From [14]: "Orange Book liberals tend to be more critical of Europe, and on the whole campaign for a reformed EU, whereas those who are associated with the party’s social democratic wing tend to insist on europhilia as part of the Liberal Democrats’ distinctive identity. In other words, the party accommodates different shades of pro-Europeanism. However, and as a reflection of their ideological commitment to internationalism and economic liberalism, Liberal Democrats of all shades tend to be strongly committed to the project of European integration."

The trouble with this is that these kind of sections in infoboxes are necessarily gross oversimplifications of very complex situations, and it's therefore debatable what value there is in having this section anyway tbh. Ultimately the only way for every single statement there to accurately describe the ideology of the entire party would be to just use vague phrases like 'liberalism', which are so ill-defined as to be entirely pointless. BubbleEngineer (talk) 11:54, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't think that economic liberalism is an accurate label. We are describing, after all, what is by most measures a centre-left pro-welfarist party.--Autospark (talk) 14:56, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Lib Dems being The Liberal Party under a new name

Certain people like Psephos (http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/b/britain/statsbritain.shtml) regard the Liberal Democrats as just The Liberal Party under a new name and as one continuous descent line from the Whigs. Thoughts? Paul Benjamin Austin (talk) 06:57, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

The Liberal Democrats were formed as a merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party. That's in the very first sentence of the article. Ralbegen (talk) 10:10, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Ralbegen My point is that people like Psephos use terms like "now known as the Liberal Democrats" when referring to the Liberal Party, or refer to the Lib Dems as "the party of Gladstone and Asquith" as if the SDP half of the party doesn't count. Paul Benjamin Austin (talk) 11:18, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Sorry for being condescending there. I don't think that an Australian blog giving a simple history or British politics is enough to make content decisions. If there's RS discussion of how the Lib Dems owe more to Liberal heritage than the Social Democratic Party or vice versa, then that could be included in the body. The Ideology section could do with some thickening out! Ralbegen (talk) 11:31, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

The Liberal Democrats is a separate party from the historical Liberal Party, just as the Liberal Party was from the Whigs, and each should have separate articles. The precedent on en.wiki is for separate articles on political parties which merge with other parties/groups or reform (e.g. Mapai and Israeli Labor Party, or Democrats of the Left and Democratic Party (Italy), among many such examples). I appreciate that some of the LibDems' own materials even speak of the party as if it is the old Liberal Party (e.g. the membership cards), but we should not conflate the two, different and separate, parties.--Autospark (talk) 14:42, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Policy

MadlockUK added a lot of material covering the Liberal Democrats' manifesto in enormous detail based entirely on the Liberal Democrats' manifesto. Some of this sort of material was already on the page, but it isn't appropriate. I deleted it, for which I was thanked by David J Johnson. MadlockUK has restored it.

This sort of material isn't appropriate on Wikipedia. It fails our requirements not to be promotional, not to be an indiscriminate collection of information, and doesn't have due weight established by use of reliable sources. How do academic journals, books and newspapers talk about about the Liberal Democrats' policy? That's something that can be discussed in this article. A near-facsimile of the party's manifesto doesn't belong here. That's what the Liberal Democrats' website is for. Ralbegen (talk) 12:30, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Agree with the above; the additions are excessive and replicating the Lib Dem manifesto isn't appropriate here. Mélencron (talk) 13:24, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

MadlockUK -> I was in the process of adding then refining the material to give more concise views. Of course, it is a lot initially but the area was flagged with it needing updating. In fact, I was thanked for adding it by Frenzie23. If allowed, I will trim it down and yes it's based on the manifesto though it just needs tuning to convey their main outcomes.

I think it is wrong to not have some sort of policy reflecting the area. What do you guys suggest? This seems rather harsh to just delete it outright without discussion like Ralbegen did. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎MadlockUK (talk • contribs)

What we have on Wikipedia should be based on reliable sources. Taking a party's manifesto and writing our own summary of it is original research, to an extent. Anything we have should be based on reliable secondary sources, such as books or broadsheet newspapers. The links that Frenzie23 posted on your Talk page will give you a good start about what's expected; and the policy pages I've linked to here should explain my reasoning. Fundamentally, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and a detailed summary of the party's platform isn't appropriate for an encyclopedia.

I think a lot of what would be appropriate in a policy section could often better fit in the ideology or history sections. I hope that helps? I appreciate the work you've done, and Wikipedia needs more editors. Please do stay around and contribute, but this particular section isn't one that's too useful. Ralbegen (talk) 13:50, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Navboxes

Hi,

It seems in a recent edit some careless individual has accidentally removed all the navboxes for this page. Perhaps someone could restore them? Morris Schaffer (talk) 09:07, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Factions

Would it make sense to use the faction demarcation used for the Democrats and Republicans in the US for the Lib Dems. The predominant ideology of the current platform is liberalism, social liberalism and pro-europeanism whereas there are strong 'social democratic', 'green liberal', 'radical' and 'classical liberal' factions under the Social Democratic Group, the Green Lib Dems, the Radical Association and Liberal Reform.

The leader Vince Cable describes the party as 'social democratic' also — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.18.100.100 (talk) 14:36, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

• Yes I think that's a good idea. Ecpiandy (talk) 22:58, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

What do you mean by "the faction demarcation used for the Democrats and Republicans in the US"? Without telling us what you mean it would be impossible for anyone to support whatever it is you are proposing. DuncanHill (talk) 23:19, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

i.e. under position

Centre to centre-left

under Ideology

Liberalism
Social liberalism
Pro-Europeanism
Factions: Classical liberalism
Social democracy — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.18.100.100 (talk) 17:08, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Reminder: The new Lib Dem leader will not take over until tomorrow (23/07)

Perhaps this will fall on deaf ears, but it's worth a shot. The results of the Lib Dem leadership election will be announced today, but whoever wins will not officially become leader until tomorrow. Please be careful not to make any premature changes to this page. Many thanks, Domeditrix (talk) 14:31, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

References

Centre-right

It struck me, looking over the interminable (and very, very boring) edit warring over the inclusion of centre-right in the article, that some editors appear to be incapable of understanding that being on the centre-right of the party is not the same as being on the centre-right of the broader political spectrum. A LibDem on the centre-right of the party will be rather to the left of someone on the left-wing of the Conservatives. DuncanHill (talk) 21:00, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure if that's what the Reliable Sources are actually saying. If I understand correctly, they suggest that the individuals/factions within the party who are generally in favour of private enterprise over state intervention could be seen as "centre-right" because of these economic views. In that sense, they wouldn't really be very different from a lot of the liberal conservatives one finds in the Conservative Party. Midnightblueowl (talk) 08:52, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Well it is the same as being centre-right on a broad political spectrum, all one needs to do is look at Lib Dem's previous policies and ideologial ideas in addition to their actions in the coalition government. One should also consider looking up on the Orange Booker faction of the party which is firmly a centre-right fixed alignment (economic liberalism) in the party based on their viewpoints. It is documented that Nick Clegg (Orange Booker in addition to Vince Cable) is considered to be on the right side of the political spectrum and I'm happy to find a source to back that or similar statements up. Ecpiandy (talk) 23:38, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Cable is probably to the right of the party currently, but not right of centre. He describes himself as a social democrat, was a councillor for Labour and came to the Lib Dems from the SDP wing. If you can back up the assertion that the party today is centre-right then cite it and add it to the article. One quick point, scrutinising how the party acted while a junior party in coalition is of little value compared to how they say they would act if governing with a majority / leading a coalition. Vox are a right wing to far right party, but in Madrid they govern in coalition with Ciudadanos, a centre to centre-right party. In Argentina, the avowedly Marxist-Leninist PC formed part of the FPV, which helped the Peronist PJ into power. Being in coalition with Vox doesn't make Ciudadanos a far-right party. Being in coalition with the Communist Party of Argentina doesn't make Kirchner a communist. Being in the coalition with the Conservatives doesn't make the Lib Dems centre-right. Domeditrix (talk) 08:28, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Domeditrix. It is correct that there is no contradiction between a party being centre-left or centrist while being a coalition partner to a centre-right party – see the current German federal government (coalition between the centre-right CDU/CSU and centre-left SPD), the previous Dutch government (coalition between centre-right VVD and centre-left PvdA), etc, etc.--Autospark (talk) 14:02, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

References

Use of the phrase "social democrat"

Under Ideology, the phrase "social democrat" is used twice, yet no justification is given for that phrase. It is not expanded upon and acts as a kind of truism because the party descends from the Social Democratic Party, yet they also descend from the Whig party and that is not covered by in the ideology section. Historical ideologies should not be included and social democratic is historical, not current — Preceding unsigned comment added by Waterisfree (talk • contribs) 21:54, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

The section you find to be contentious has been adequately sourced. Deleting that part of the article (and the corresponding source) is POV pushing. Domeditrix (talk) 21:58, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

The source is nearly a decade old which makes it outdated for judging a political party's current ideology which the article aims to portray. Current scholarship, such as McAnulla, 2010; Beech, 2011a; Hall, 2011; Kelly, 2011; Kerr et al., 2011; Buckler and Dolowitz, 2012; Crines, 2013; Heppell, 2013; Lakin, 2013; Griffiths, 2014; Hayton, 2014, contradict you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Waterisfree (talk • contribs) 22:11, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

In September, then-leader Vince Cable made a speech on the party's direction and ideology. In the speech, he stated: "We are a centre-ground, pro-European, liberal and social democratic party, welcoming like-minded supporters."

When Chuka Umunna recently joined the party, Cable said: "I know that he will be a great asset to our party not just on Brexit, but in fighting for the liberal and social democratic values that we share."

In his resignation statement after the 2019 European Parliament elections, Cable wrote about opportunities for the Lib Dems. He said: "Another is the opportunity created by the conflict and decay within the two main parties to build a powerful, liberal, green, and social democratic force in the centre ground of British politics. We are now in an excellent position to lead such a movement." Domeditrix (talk) 06:59, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Those are all statements by politicians and we can't use those as [[WP:RS|reliable sources) on this matter. Waterisfree would you let us have examples from the academic references you quote so we can see if there is a case to make a change? -----Snowded ^TALK 07:45, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I would be wary of sources exclusively from the coalition era too, mind (2010, 2011, 2011, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2013, 2013, 2014, 2014). Clegg was to the right of the current party. Domeditrix (talk) 07:49, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Agree we need balance but it is fair to say that we should use more recent sources than the current ones -----Snowded ^TALK 07:51, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

An article in The Economist, from 2016:

"Mr Farron’s strategy is clearly to win over moderate Labourites alienated by Mr Corbyn. Hence the praise in his closing speech this afternoon for Yvette Cooper, Caroline Flint, Chuka Umunna and even (albeit in a qualified fashion) Tony Blair. This may help the Lib Dems pick up some new members. But electorally, the sorts of places where Mr Farron’s welcome blend of social democracy and liberalism does best are safe Labour seats in places like London, Bristol and Norwich."

An editorial by The Independent, from 2016:

"The Lib Dems face a daunting challenge, but the country needs a strong voice for Europe and for social democracy"

An article in The Telegraph, from 2016:

"At the moment though, the LibDems remain a rather nondescript, ill-defined, conglomeration of soggy social democrats. It’s just possible that this positioning will pay dividends for Tim Farron and his party." Domeditrix (talk) 08:11, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Stronger than the earlier set - but those are news items, not reflective pieces so we really need to look at academic texts -----Snowded ^TALK 08:23, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't know the process here, but in the absence of recent academic texts, is it preferable to use outdated academic texts or recent reports from reliable sources? Domeditrix (talk) 08:32, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

We have to look at the balance of sources and their nature. A reflective piece in the Economist is more important that the casual use of a term in a news report. We are always reluctant to use primary sources. I'd also point out that comments on Farron are also out of date. Lets see what the content is on the academic ones then we can talk about it -----Snowded ^TALK 09:17, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Another example, from article in the New Statesman, from 2019:

"If you have left the Labour Party because you think that Jeremy Corbyn is unfit to lead it, you are not going to ratify any accord that puts him in charge of the country. That hostility to a Corbyn-led government is present and widespread in the party’s pre-existing social democrat and social liberal tendencies as well." Domeditrix (talk) 09:31, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Needs academic or something other than a commentary/news item. Suggest you have a look on google scholar -----Snowded ^TALK 09:34, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

"What the public have in this new era of British politics is an accord between two political parties that espouse two types of liberalism and contain similarities as well as stark differences. And yet, at the heart of this accord is opposition to the social democratic state that has presided at the epicentre of British politics since the premiership of Clement Attlee"

Beech grounds his claim in a book called "The Organge Book: Reclaiming Liberalism", which both Clegg and Cable contributed, and it does not mention social democracy once.

To paint the orange book wing and the coalition government as representative of mainstream Liberal Democratic party principles or of the party today is highly misleading.

"The party was still suffering from its participation in the 2010–2015 coalition government; but it was also tracking further away from the ‘Orange Book’ centrism that had characterised Nick Clegg's leadership." (Allen and Bara, 2019)

"The Lib Dems still nominally subscribe to a left-of-centre agenda, closer to Labour than the Conservatives but the more market-oriented 'Orange Book' faction has found coalition Government to its liking; in practice, the party has had to stand by and watch its dearest tenets attenuated by the exigencies of Coalition Government." (Jones, 2014)

"The election of Tim Farron as Liberal Democrat leader was a clear shift in ideological direction for a party reeling from the consequences of coalition." (Wager and Bale, 2019). Domeditrix (talk) 11:28, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Tim Farron is no longer the leader of the Lib Dems, so using his tenure to show a shift back is wrong. Swinson does come from the same wing as Clegg, as did Cable. All three are Orange Book liberals and so it is safe to assume that the current ideology of Lib Dems is not social-democratic. Rightly, if someone from the left replaces Swinson then it should be updated again but to currently use the term obscures the actual ideology of the Lib Dems right now. And here is the evidence for Swinsons ideological position:

"Any Lib Dem knows that the party is a broad tent, welcoming liberals of all types. That’s what makes the party so unique. And yet recent history tells us that tacking to the right of the centre ground, as occurred under the leadership of Nick Clegg and during the period of coalition, does not work. With a right of centre manifesto, we lost seats going into 2010, and then hit the lowest of the low in 2015. Jo Swinson as leader would oversee a shift back towards the wrong side of the ideological spectrum."

"The Orange Book caucus hasn’t gone away, though. The new Liberal Democratic leader Jo Swinson took over as employment minister in 2012, when he was promoted to energy minister. On her Lib Dem leadership campaign website Swinson claims that “as Minister for Employment Relations” she delivered “a fairer deal for workers.” She will, she says promisingly, “build an economy that puts people and the planet first.”"

"As a contributor to the ‘Orange Book’, a 2004 publication still popular with the Party’s right for its defence of free markets and individual liberty, Ed Davey will start off as favourite amongst many of the Party’s more economically liberal members, but in truth there is plenty that both candidates could point to in their pasts as Coalition ministers in order to claim to be the candidate of the ‘Orange Bookers'."Waterisfree (talk) 13:58, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Citations that support the use of social democracy/social democrat

1. https://www.libdems.org.uk/building-a-liberal-democrat-movement
2. https://www.itv.com/news/2019-06-13/lib-dems-boosted-as-former-labour-turned-change-uk-mp-chuka-umunna-joins/
3. https://www.libdems.org.uk/rebuilt-lib-dems
4. https://www.economist.com/bagehots-notebook/2016/09/20/what-is-the-point-of-the-liberal-democrats
5. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/the-liberal-democrats-attempt-at-a-comeback-is-admirable-but-the-public-does-not-trust-them-a7313521.html
6. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/20/tim-farrons-liberal-democrats-are-irrelevant-because-they-are-no/
7. https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2019/07/lib-dems-pledge-against-jeremy-corbyn-suggests-next-parliament-could-be

Citations showing the Clegg-era position is not indicative of later (i.e. current) positions

1. Nicholas Allen and Judith "Marching to the Left? Programmatic Competition and the 2017 Party Manifestos" (2019)
2. Bill Jones and Philip Norton "Politics UK" (Jones and Norton, 2014)
3. Alan Wager and Tim Bale in "Liberal Parties in Europe" (edited by Caroline Close and Emilie van Haute, 2019)

Citations that oppose the use of social democracy/social democrat

1. item 1
2. item 2

References

Centre-right?

I wouldn't consider the Liberal Democrats a "centre-left" party, specifically in consider to their voting record and their classical liberal ideals, they're more right-aligned actually. If anyone can find any sources to prove my point please do, I'll try to later but I don't have time at the moment. But it would be better to label them as simply centre, perhaps. Ecpiandy (talk) 23:57, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

I doubt you'd find anyone who isn't far-left who considers them centre-right! On taxation, welfare, education, sexual and reproductive rights, and much more their positions are consistently left-of-centre. DuncanHill (talk) 00:35, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Agreed, the Liberal Democrats are quite clearly a centre-left party.--Autospark (talk) 13:41, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm aware of Reliable Sources by political scientists who have discussed both centre-left and centre-right wings of the party, who have been dominant within it at different times. I'll try and get around to adding those in future. Midnightblueowl (talk) 22:21, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

The infobox is being debated again as of September 15. I'd call LibDems socially left-wing and economically centrist, but I don't know if any sources agree with me. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 12:41, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Change in political position?

Considering the large number of Conservative defectors (who will undoubtedly belong to the Orange Book wing of the party), can the party's political position still be accurately described as left-leaning? --RaviC (talk) 12:50, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

"Considering the large number of Labour defectors, surely the party should now be described as socialist?" There have been three from the Tories, three from Labour. DuncanHill (talk) 12:54, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Fair point, but a false equivalence in my view - those members were hardly in the socialist wing of the party, being associated with Blue Labour. --RaviC (talk) 13:02, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

How about you look at the party's policies and judge on that, instead of on your personal prejudices about individuals? DuncanHill (talk) 13:04, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Which of the party's current policies put them right of centre? Which serious (i.e. non-Canary) sources are describing the current party as right of centre? Domeditrix (talk) 13:08, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

As ever, all that matters are reliable sources rather than editors interpretations of politicians or policies. Stephen Bush in the New Statesman today talks specifically about the positioning of the Liberal Democrats and concludes it's "essentially in the position it has occupied for decades", which is "of the liberal centre to centre-left". That supports the long-running status quo of this page. Perhaps there's something of use in that piece that could be used in the body of the article. Ralbegen (talk) 13:30, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Defection of a few MPs does not change the ideology of an established 31-year-old political party overnight.--Autospark (talk) 13:36, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. We need to look at the big picture here. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 16:03, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

I also agree. Let's avoid WP:Recentism here. Midnightblueowl (talk) 16:30, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Agree with User:Autospark. "Centre to centre-left" is OK. I would be fine with "Centre". --Checco (talk) 06:38, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

LibDems are clearly not centre, IMHO; again, I emphasize that their stances are different between social and economic issues, and that should be emphasized in the infobox. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 20:18, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Absolutely agree. I'd go as far as to describe them as "centre to centre-right' or perhaps as just 'centre' as both factions can be reconciled with. They definitely are not a social democratic party. Ecpiandy (talk) 18:01, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Do you have any reliable sources to support your (frankly bizarre) claim? DuncanHill (talk) 19:07, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Can we please stop calling them a centre-right party? They're not, obviously. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 20:05, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

LibDems: centre or centre-left, and how to source such information

@Helper201: I see your point at your reversion, and now you bring that up, I'd actually argue that all sources during the early stages of Brexit and earlier should be removed. Brexit has clearly changed the political scene dramatically, per WP:BLUE, and therefore I think we should remove those older sources. We should not need a large number of sources for simply "centre to centre-left." --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 12:28, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. Please provide some reliable sources that show that the party's poltical position on the spectrum has changed during Brexit, and if so how. Having multiple citations is a benefit, I see no reason how it is a negative. WP:BLUE is not applicable in this case, these are political postions, and while there may be general consenus it is nothing compared to the virtual unanmity of agreement behind basic statements such as the colour of the sky. Helper201 (talk) 20:24, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

From WP:BLUE:

Sometimes editors will insist on citations for material simply because they dislike it or prefer some other material, not because the material in any way needs verification. For example, an editor may demand a citation for the fact that most people have five digits on each hand (yes, this really happened). Another may decide that the color of the sky is actually aqua rather than blue, pull out an assortment of verifiable spectrographic analyses and color charts to demonstrate that this position is actually correct, and follow that with a demand that other editors provide equivalent reliable sources for the original statement that the sky is in fact blue. While there are cases where this kind of pedantic insistence is useful and necessary, often it is simply disruptive, and can be countered simply by pointing out that there is no need to verify statements that are patently obvious. If the alternate proposition merits inclusion in the article under other policies and guidelines it should of course be included, but it should in no way be given greater prominence because it is sourced.

Applicable to this discussion? Of course not.

How can political parties' positions not change when an issue completely changes in importance and significance? Surely, an event like Brexit is going to stir the pot a little. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 21:01, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

You haven't even proposed what exactly should be removed and what justifies removal and what does not. Do we start from when the Brexit campaining began, the day of the vote, after that etc? You have also yet to state how and in what way the party's policital position on the spectrum has changed during Brexit. Helper201 (talk) 21:12, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

How about, we don't include any assessments before the vote? The party's position has come out clearly in opposition to Brexit (which is obviously a change, as Brexit only began in 2017), and as I understand it, the LibDems have solidified their left-wing position on social issues (but I don't know the second one for sure). --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 21:33, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Vote on what exactly? The Brexit issue is an issue of poitical ideology, not a question of their political position on the left-right spectrum. I have seen no signicant change on the party's social issue stances since Brexit to warrent any change in political position. Helper201 (talk) 21:37, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

The vote on Brexit, the Brexit Referendum, of course. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 21:39, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

But you have still yet to state how and in what way the party's political postion has changed on the left-right spectrum since the Brexit vote. And most importantly provide some evidence for this. Helper201 (talk) 21:42, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Are you actually saying that the LibDems are in the centre of the spectrum on social issues? Answer that question. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 19:32, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm not making any claim about the party's political position whether it be social issues or anything else, in any direction. My view and yours are irrelevant here. What matters are what reliable sources state. Helper201 (talk) 12:35, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, but no matter what our views are, outdated sources should still be moved in a dynamic political situation. Agreed? --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 20:29, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Not until you can prove they are out of date. Where have the party moved on the left-right spectrum as opposed to where they were at the time of these sources? I have seen no sources state any change of political position of the party on the left-right spectrum around the time of Brexit. Yes their policy has developed surrounding Brexit, but I don't see how this has changed their political position left or right. Helper201 (talk) 15:32, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Helper101 is right. We go with what the Reliable Sources say and do not change until they change. Always remember: Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth. Midnightblueowl (talk) 22:16, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

References

Infobox: party leader

Is it the practice in British political party articles, to place outgoing next to a party leader's name? This isn't done for Canadian political party articles. What say you all? — Preceding unsigned comment added by GoodDay (talk • contribs) 16:21, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Official Position

I made a good faith edit that has been reverted as a POV is being asserted by another editor. The Liberal Democrats says it is centrist, yet the info box says it is centre left, the official site Liberal Democrats also says it is centrist, the info box needs updating and outdated links removing and replacing with the correct upto date information, effort to amend that in good faith is met with reversion asserting what appears to be an outdated POV, here is the statement from the Lib Dem Official page https://www.libdems.org.uk/7-surprising-facts-libdem-members

The page needs its info box updating. --Pennine rambler (talk) 18:28, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Some sources position the party as centrist, others position it as centre-left. There are recent academic sources supporting each perspective. In matters of political ideology, it is not the job of editors to decide which academic sources are 'right'. It is certainly not the job of editors to scrub any reference to these sources from the article, and replace it with a link to a webpage, wherein the only relevant sentence regarding the party's political position is: "Whilst thinking the party is rooted in the centre ground, our members position themselves slighly left of centre". Domeditrix (talk) 19:18, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Surely what the party itself says trumps those, https://www.libdems.org.uk/7-surprising-facts-libdem-members that was given as a properly formatted citation to the official web site, not just a web link, it is also for editors to update sources and to ensure those sources are reliable upto date and relevant, the Lib Dems own page would surely qualify, but you removed it as source and reverted to POVs from the other sources. 3 at the Lib Dem link says "Our members are slightly more left wing than they think the party is." and "Lib Dem members were asked to place themselves on a left/right scale and then to do the same with the party. Whilst thinking the party is rooted in the centre ground, our members position themselves slighly left of centre." this means even the Lib Dems and its membership do not agree with the assertion they are centre left wing --Pennine rambler (talk) 19:39, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

This is a direct quote from this article, start of 3rd paragraph in lead section: "Positioned in the centre ground of British politics, the Liberal Democrats ideologically draw upon both liberalism and social democracy. Different factions have dominated the party at different points in its history, each with its own ideological bent, some leaning towards the centre-left and others the centre-right." again this does not match the information given in the info box.--Pennine rambler (talk) 19:43, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia prefers secondary sources. Primary sources should only be used with care, and a political party describing their political position is not preferable to reliable academic or news sources. Ralbegen (talk) 22:19, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

First-party sources should under no circumstances be used to categorise a political party's ideology or position on the political spectrum. That's just not up to academic standards, and also isn't en.wiki convention.--Autospark (talk) 13:28, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Autospark and Ralbegen I am do not normally edit political articles, on reflection I can see why Lib Dem own pages are not valid sources. --Pennine rambler (talk) 17:20, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Lib Dem source aside, Domeditrix the article itself, describing a centre ground party, with multiple accepted existing sources does not seem to match its own infobox stating it is centre left, using what maybe out of date sources. --Pennine rambler (talk) 17:41, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I think it's unfair to characterise Kesselman, Krieger and Joseph's 2018 book as 'out of date'. It's pretty standard practice to use the phrasing "x to y" for political parties that straddle these nebulous borders, as the Lib Dems do. There may be further discussion in the article itself, as there is in this article. If you wish to butt up against that particular practice, you'll want to start a conversation on the Politics WikiProject page – this article's talk page isn't really the place for that. Domeditrix (talk) 18:03, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Domeditrix reading this article as a whole and then reading the infobox is where there is mismatch as I have pointed out, the text is saying one thing the info box contradicts it, the issues are in the inconsistency of the article, this is not the type of article I normally edit or have interest in, a small good faith edit was the intent, to me it looked like an error to have centre and centre left in the infobox. I can also see this is a contentious topic, we simply don't agree. --Pennine rambler (talk) 18:20, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

"A small good faith edit". Mate, you made a bold edit, with the edit summary "Centralist not left wing esp with number of Conservatives as members", scrubbing two reliable academic sources and replacing them with nothing. It doesn't scream 'good faith edit' from somebody that has been using the site for a decade. Neither does, after being asked by an editor to take it to the talk page first, ignoring that editor and reverting the page back to the scrubbed version. It also doesn't seem a hugely good faith move to go to my talk page to leave an erroneous warning accusing me of POV pushing, purely because I too had the audacity to request again that you voice your concerns here first. It didn't seem like a good faith move either to premise this entire discussion on an assumption that Helper201 and I are acting in bad faith: "a POV is being asserted by another editor". Domeditrix (talk) 18:52, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Domeditrix We disagree on content of this article infobox, the article text does not match, article does not state anywhere that the party is centre to centre-left, that only appears in the infobox, the article states that the party has a mix of left and right and is centrist, the infobox is inconsistent with the article. Hence what appeared to be an error in the infobox I edited out in good faith and the position remained stated as centre with all four citations. You reverted my edit and did not open discussion neither on the article talk page or user talk page, instead you immediately issued an unwarranted warning. The inconsistency in the infobox compared to the article is obvious, nowhere in the article does it say they are currently centre-left, in fact it says they are centre-right, surely they cannot be all three at the same time? Maybe editing the article text to explain how it is centre-left would help with inconsistency, as that is the issue in the article.--Pennine rambler (talk) 01:31, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Domeditrix This reference named KesselmanKrieger2018, a book by Mark Kesselman, Joel Krieger and William A. Joseph, titled 'Introduction to Comparative Politics: Political Challenges and Changing Agendas' page 71 online at https://books.google.com/books?id=zA9EDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA71 citation numbered 12 in the article that you have used does not support the assertion being made that the party is centre-left it actually states they are centrist, I have read it now. Please explain why you feel the citation supports your assertion. --Pennine rambler (talk) 00:52, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

If you don't think it supports the assertion, be bold and remove it. The original bone of contention was that you shot first and asked questions later, and accused anybody that went against you of POV pushing. I don't see why you feel the need to make this personal and tag me at each instance – this is not my article. Nonetheless, I did a quick Google search and found a 2018 source that states: "The Lib-Dems still nominally subscribe to a left-of-centre agenda" – so I feel this whole point may be moot. Domeditrix (talk) 21:28, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Or the New Statesman here which I mentioned in a previous discussion, describing the party as of the "liberal centre to centre-left", which explicitly supports the current formulation. This is a perennial topic on lots of different political party's articles, and you can find lots of previous discussions in the archives. Ralbegen (talk) 23:07, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Ralbegen I think the New Statesman article pretty well sums up the shifting position of the party and its identity crisis.(Instant Opinion: ‘Whose party is this anyway? That’s the question gripping Liberal Democrats’ - The Week) It would be worth including in the body text, along with the other sources to explain how the party is Centre-left, as the infobox states. --Pennine rambler (talk) 23:45, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Should we really be giving WP:UNDUE to a recent magazine article which is essentially an opinion piece?--Autospark (talk) 14:31, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

You may have a point, a citation claiming to support 'centre left' position added since the topic opened on here does not support that from what I have just read, I am not sure why it has been added, it actually says "It's clear that claiming the element of the centre ground thus vacated was a prime objective of Theresa May from her very first speech as Prime Minister. Her 2017 Manifesto even went so far as to claim allegiance to the remarkably left of centre value." I cannot see where this supports the claim the party is centre left. Politics UK chapter 5.--Pennine rambler (talk) 20:43, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I think you're a little confused here. The passage you've quoted from the book is about Theresa May, and is not written in the section of the book on the Liberal Democrats. You'll note that this is the Wikipedia article for the Liberal Democrats, not Theresa May. Thus, the pertinent sentence in support of the assertion comes from the section of the book on the Liberal Democrats: "The Lib Dems still nominally ascribe to a left-of-centre agenda, closer to Labour than the Conservatives". Moreover, the passage you've quoted is clearly marked as a quote of a newspaper columnist (Steve Richards), and has not been endorsed by the authors. On this basis, please do not hastily remove the source from the page as you have with others in the past. Domeditrix (talk) 21:03, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Domeditrix This reference named KesselmanKrieger2018, a book by Mark Kesselman, Joel Krieger and William A. Joseph, titled 'Introduction to Comparative Politics: Political Challenges and Changing Agendas' page 71 online at https://books.google.com/books?id=zA9EDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA71 has remained in the article, it states they are centralist. No-where in the article text does it state that the party are centre left, that is still only stated in the infobox, by -your edit. There is an issue there with wp:undue and I think you know that, hence addition of another citation 'Politics UK' where you have not given a page number. Your earlier citation did not support your assertion, the source KesselmanKrieger2018 was not removed. --Pennine rambler (talk) 22:08, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

The eBook version does not appear to have page numbers, and has instead been split into chapters and sections. I have cited which chapter the remark appears in, and have directly linked to the excerpt. I do not have a physical copy of the book to hand to add a specific page number, but in any case I don't believe it to be an absolute requirement if a chapter citation is given. There is discussion of the party's positioning on the left-right spectrum in the section the article: Liberalism and centrism. It has been there for some while. Domeditrix (talk) 22:18, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

'Yellow Tories'

Taking it here to be discussed. As I understand it, we tend not to give greater prominence than is due to more niche viewpoints, especially when they exist as slurs. It is for this reason that we don't see the Labour Party or Jeremy Corbyn referred to as 'Communist' or 'Stalinist' on the corresponding articles, despite the existence of opinion pieces and Twitter comments reinforcing those beliefs (neither will you find 'red Tories' on the Labour Party article). In this article, "The party became known as yellow Tories" (owtte) have been posted uncritically in this article. That a perjorative used by a small number of the party's political rivals is is being reported uncritically here I think gives undue weight to a minority viewpoint. I'd be interested in hearing different views on this, and would prefer that we find a consensus. Domeditrix (talk) 21:16, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Here is what you removed

The party under Cleggs leadership was branded as 'Yellow Tories.

Citations

Why the Lib Dems are being branded ‘Yellow Tories’ https://www.theweek.co.uk/103955/why-the-lib-dems-are-being-branded-yellow-tories Yellow Tories? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/may/11/coalition-liberaldemocrats-conservatives

You have completely removed reference to it from the entire article. --Pennine rambler (talk) 21:56, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, for the reasons detailed above I considered it to be given undue weight. Listing all the nicknames used by a party's political opponents to denigrate the party is not something I've seen done on Wikipedia before, hence opening the discussion here to get a range of viewpoints. Domeditrix (talk) 22:12, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Domedetrix, it's undue weight. The Perkins piece is from the "Comment is Free" section of the Guardian, so not much better than a blog as a source. DuncanHill (talk) 22:21, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

No, it should be in the article,

Additional sources

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9015000/9015216.stm

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/23/lib-dems-stained-austerity-trust-tories

https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2019/10/27/lib-dems-carry-on-making-fools-of-themselves-as-tories-reject-push-for-early-election/

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/lib-dems-are-the-yellow-tories-758554

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/uk-election-yellow-tories/

https://twnews.co.uk/gb-news/why-the-lib-dems-are-being-branded-yellow-tories

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1165930/brexit-latest-news-jeremy-corbyn-letter-no-deal-Boris-Johnson-eu-negotiation

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/cutscheck-selling-off-the-family-silver

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/balls-torments-yellow-tories-over-tv-debates-t6jr5tvrd93

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/tories-deny-knocking-liverpool-doors-14496585 --Pennine rambler (talk) 22:28, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

If you could edit your list to remove the blogs, the Canary, the tabloids, etc, people might look at what's left. And again, why are you so obsessed with this one passing nickname for one party, and at this particular time too? I'm sure you're not deliberately trying to use Wikipedia to promote your political position during an election campaign, but a less chivalrous person might suspect it. DuncanHill (talk) 22:34, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

The wide variety of articles as sources show it is not a niche view, surely the better approach would be to explain how 'Yellow Tories' came about and if the party remains the same, given it is so widely known for this it would be a wonder why it has been removed and there is no mention of it, the article lacks consistency as already stated and absence of this fact shows lack of neutrality --Pennine rambler (talk) 23:27, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

They aren't "widely known" as Yellow Tories, it's an attack term used by opponents. DuncanHill (talk) 23:57, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 November 2019

Can we add to the ideology section explaining that they do not allow or select Roman Catholics to run for office under their banner. This I know could be controversial, however, it goes to the very heart of what liberalism is. Ke1th (talk) 17:10, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. - FlightTime (open channel) 17:20, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

It isn't true, so no. --Jamesbelchamber (talk) 19:44, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Party President/Acting Leader

Baroness Brinton's term ended yesterday; the new party President is Mark Pack who in the role becomes joint acting leader (and, as he puts it, a future political pub quiz question). Unfortunately coverage of the role is limited and Lib Dem Voice seems the main source - here it is reporting the election [15] and here's Baroness Brinton writing on her term ending [16]. Timrollpickering (Talk) 13:16, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Liberal Democrats are or is a political party?

Why does it start saying The Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems) are a liberal political party in the United Kingdom rather than The Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems) is a liberal political party in the United Kingdom? I understand that it's usually said the Liberal Democrats are and used in plural form (this is also done for other parties like the Democrats, the Republicans, the Conservatives, etc. are, or in plural forms, but the party remains singular), but regardless of having a plural name it's still a political party and so it should read is rather than are; or did I miss something? Also, Lib Dem isn't an acroym like UKIP, so rather than The Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems) it should be The Liberal Democrats, also known as the Lib Dems, [...]. Let me know what you think and if I missed anything because English isn't my first language.--Davide King (talk) 23:18, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi @Davide King:, I can't find a single source that treats the Liberal Democrats as a singular noun. They all use "The Liberal Democrats are". Compare to The Beatles for example, which is a singular band with a plural name too. Ralbegen (talk) 14:27, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Ralbegen, thank you so much for your reply. Yeah, it makes sense what you said. I simply thought that at least that phrasing could have been in singular because the party is singular and that they use The Liberal Democrats are pretty much like The Tories are or The Conservatives are, but that they would be saying is a poltical party. However, your Beatles example is right and I guess I was simply wrong. I just hope I didn't waste your time or caused any problem. Thanks again for your clarification.--Davide King (talk) 14:38, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Ralbegen, should Lib Dems stay in parenthesis or would a change to The Liberal Democrats, formerly known as the Social and Liberal Democrats and also referred to as the Lib Dems be better? I've seen used only parties' acronym in parentheis, not abbreviations. Do you think the former name (Social and Liberal Democrats) deserve to be bolded and mentioned in the first line like I did above?--Davide King (talk) 14:44, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Political spectrum

Ralbegen, in regard to this, I have to disagree. I think the main body actually support just leaving Centre. It's consistent with both Coservatives and Labour parties which we simply and correctly list as Centre-right and Centre-left, respectively. In addition, we literally writes in the lead that it is [p]ositioned in the centre ground of British politics and that it has centre-left and centre-right factions. Since in Ideology we write how the party has been sometimes seen as being more left-wing than Labour and other times more right-wing of Conservatives, further considering as I wrote in the note that [t]he party is widely seen as a centrist party. In practice, the party has leaned more left and right through the years, depending on the electoral conditions and the party leaders, among other factors. Some analysts describe the party as centre-left (although we can easily find others who describe it as centre-right during its right-leaning turns, I think it makes sense summarise it as Centre). The Ideology section reads that the party was set up to be a centre-left party, that it wanted to take Labour's place on the centre-left, not that in practice it was centre-left and that party could be described as centre-left only when the Labour went through New Labour. I can understand Centre-left to centre for the historical Liberal Party because it was indeed on the centre-left before Labour took its place; however, in this case we have the main body discussing how the party has moved left and right, with the only thing certain being that the party remained in the centre. Finally, I think we should write Amber as Colours, for that is the actual colour's name; we may simply write in the main body that the party style guide says it is yellow.

TLDR

We might as well change it to Centre-left to centre-right, but I would say simply Centre suffices; all parties have left and right factions.--Davide King (talk) 17:39, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Davide King:. A cursory search of Google Scholar shows that academic coverage of the Liberal Democrats that discusses their political party refers to them most often as "centrist", less often but still frequently as "centre-left" and never as centre-right. The three results on Google Scholar for "centre-right Liberal Democrats" include one referring to the Japanese LDP and one referring to the distinction between internal factions rather than the party as a whole (I can't access the full text of the third, sadly). There are also a number of sources which explicitly attribute them the range of the centre to centre-left. Since there's so much scholarship on the subject, I don't think there's any use for journalistic sources. I can list the sources I'm referring to but you can achieve the same effect with some targeted searching of Scholar and assessing which are relevant (that is, which are concerning the political position of the British Liberal Democrats as a whole). Ralbegen (talk) 18:08, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Strong Oppose to any notion of listing "centre-left to centre-right" in the Infobox. Not only confusing, but untrue in practice and from any reliable references. Only one position should be left in – I prefer centre-left, but I would accept centre/centrist as per the bulk of the references.--Autospark (talk) 19:02, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

To be clear, I didn't actually propose to add Centre-right, Autospark, it was an example. I'm actually proposing we leave just Centre. The party has leaned left and right depending on the context, so it's probably best just write Centre (which seems to be the majority consensus of sources, with Centre-left as a minority) which is also consistent with the Conservatives and Labour being Centre-right and Centre-left which I support.--Davide King (talk) 20:44, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Labour and the Conservatives are consistently described in academic sources as being centre-left and centre-right respectively to a greater degree than the Liberal Democrats are described solely as centrist. The standing description of "centre to centre-left" is one that is consistent with descriptions of the party as "centrist", "centre-left" or as occupying the "centre to centre-left", which together form an overwhelming majority of academic source descriptions of the political position of the party. My preference is for "centre to centre-left" to stand, which I think is borne out by reliable sources. If there needs to be only one description, which I think would reflect the balance of coverage more poorly, it should be "centrist" (or "centre", strictly, which I think is the appropriate grammar). Ralbegen (talk) 21:21, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

I'd completely disagree with labelling the party centre-left to centre-right. I think the current centre to centre-left is fine. I'm not sure about removing the citations from the infobox as now it doesn't appear as accurate before. Before the amount of citations applied to centre in the infobox was a good way of indicating how the vast majority of sources view the party as centrist, whereas now it looks equally balanced as to whether it could be called centrist or centre-left. Helper201 (talk) 21:40, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

I also think it’s helpful if we also keep the citations for other claims in the infobox, such as those for the party's ideologies. Without them it can look like these are unreferenced to less experienced editors and I can see it leading to people trying to remove them because they think they are uncited. It could also lead to non-editors thinking they are claims that are not cited at all and just assumptions. Helper201 (talk) 21:44, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Helper201, see MOS:LEADCITE. The Infobox is already way enlarged, we don't need to further enlarge it by adding references which can be easily found in the main body. Like the lead, the Infobox should be a summary of the article and thus all references used in the main body need not to be repeated in the lead, per MOS:LEADCITE. Ralbegen, that's why I left only Centre in my edit but added a note which discussed its Centre-left citations. My proposal would be to simply leave Centre which is what we say in the lead. Again, see the refs which talks about the Lib Dems leaning left and right at different times, etc.--Davide King (talk) 22:20, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

It's better if there aren't references in the infobox (which I think should also extend to explanatory footnotes). It's right that the party's position should be described consistently throughout the article, in a way that's led by the prose of the bdoy. As you say, the current standing of the prose means that "Centre" is probably the appropriate summary in the infobox and "centrist" in the lead. However, based on looking over articles on Google Scholar, I think that "centre to centre-left" is a better representation of reliable source descriptions of the party's political position. From that, I think it's reasonable to use "centre" and "centrist" for the infobox and lead for the time being. That said, I'd be interested in revisiting the relevant prose and trying to refocus it away from journalistic sources towards books and academic papers as far as possible. If some future version of the article's text supports a return to "centre to centre-left" then it can grow up that way. Ralbegen (talk) 22:34, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose. There are recent academic sources labelling the party (as it currently exists) as centre and centre-left. It's a false equivocation to say 'as the party has a strong centrist faction, that its centre-right faction must be as large as the centre-left faction'. I also think at least one citation needs to be given in the infobox for centre and centre-left—this is standard practice, and having two additional footnotes in the infobox doesn't crowd things. Domeditrix (talk) 09:06, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Domeditrix, we currently have Roberts 1997, p. 463; Whiteley, Seyd & Billinghurst 2006, p. 157; Taylor 2007, p. 31. for Centre, excluding further refs that were in the Infobox for Centre; for Centre-left we have Heywood 2011, p. 126; Clark 2012, pp. 86–93; Daddow, Jones & Norton (2018), "Chapter 5 – Political ideas: the major parties". I don't understand why we should have refs in the Infobox when we should list key facts which are properly referenced and discussed in the main body; and I'm the kind who wants everything to be cited. One compromise would be to use the Footnotes parameter of the Infobox rather than refn as I did here. Either way, neither me nor Ralbegen ever wrote or argued that as the party has a strong centrist faction, that its centre-right faction must be as large as the centre-left faction, so I'm afraid that's a strawman. I think that for parties which are like Centre to centre left or Centre to centre-right we should probably just leave Centre and describe in the main body why it leans more to the left and right, etc. I absolutely agree with Ralbegen that we should try to refocus it away from journalistic sources towards books and academic papers as far as possible. To add, I'm simply advocating for consistency since in the lead we write that the party is [p]ositioned in the centre ground of British politics and there is no mention of centre-left.--Davide King (talk) 23:26, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Just to add because I'm not sure I've made my view clear above (and I've changed my mind a bit during the course of the conversation): the lead and the infobox need to be summaries of the material in the body of the article. As it stands, the material in the body of the article is best summarised as "centrist". Based on what I've seen of academic sources, the ground truth of where reliable source descriptions of the party's political position are better summarised as "centre to centre-left". But for that to be an appropriate summary of the article, the text in the body of the article should be updated and rewritten first based on the balance of academic descriptions of the party's ideology and political position. At that point, the best summary of the party's position would be "centre to centre-left" and that should be used in the infobox and the lead. Ralbegen (talk) 23:40, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Classical liberalism

Classical liberalism is not part of the Lib Dems' ideology, the party doesn't advocate laissez-faire economics as classical liberals do, plus social liberalism and classical liberalism are incompatible, they can't both be part of the ideology of the party. Modern184 (talk) 14:13, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree --Icantthinkofausernames (talk) 09:16, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Modern184, I agree too (although I disagree with the conflation of classical liberalism with economic liberalism and laissez-faire; several liberals were opposed to wage labour or were otherwise closer to social liberalism; I prefer classical liberalism and new liberalism instead for pre-19th century and post-19th century liberalism, respectively), that's why I'm proposing to have a Factions parameter in the Infobox, so that for Ideology we have only Liberalism; for Factions we have Classical liberalism, Economic liberalism and Social Liberalism (or better yet, link directly to the factions, i.e. Liberal Reform, Orange Book and Social Liberal Forum); while in Political position (with the current Political position renamed Political spectrum) we have Classical liberalism, Economic liberalism, Pro-Europeanism and Social liberalism.--Davide King (talk) 17:22, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

In my opinion, that isn't a workable idea. Firstly, it's a serious exaggeration to cite there being any significant groups of economic or classical liberals in the LibDems party – the party is significantly, if not vastly, social-liberal in character. Laissez-faire capitalists are basically marginal if non-existent in the LibDems. Also, groups like Social Liberal Forum aren't even factions in the party, organised or otherwise – they are activist groups which are entirely independent of the party (the SLF even lets Green Party members join these days). Besides, listing all of the sub-factions – real or not – of any political party is an ridiculous way to fill up Infoboxes with needless bloat and confusing mess. Ideology is for ideologies (preferably three at the very most for any political party), and Position should be the left/right spectrum, all with reliable references of course.--Autospark (talk) 18:33, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Autospark, that's not according to the sourced content in the main body which reads the two main ideological strands are social liberals and economic liberals and that the party has classical and social liberal factions which is again referenced. Those may not be factions but they may still be a useful link in the Infobox, although I would be fine with just Economic liberalism and Social liberalism as factions (again, I was just saying). Either way, only Liberalism should be in the Infobox because economic liberalism and social liberalism represents two factions; most centrist liberal parties are like that, they have a social left-liberal faction and a right classical-conservative faction. Finally, I think the Infobox should be a summary of the party like the lead and several party-related articles include a Faction section and that should be summarised in the Infobox too. Of course I agree all that would need to be discussed and properly sourced but that's why we should have a Ideology and Faction section (that is for all parties which have substantial sources about that, not only this) in the first place and then reflect that in the Infobox.--Davide King (talk) 20:44, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

While there might be some classical liberals, as well as some social democrats and greens (for that matter), in the party's ranks, they are just a tiny minority (if there were a "factions" parameter, mening "relevant factions" parameter, "classical liberalism" would not qualify too).

I strongly think that we should have only one or two (three at the very most!) ideologies for the "ideology" parameter: I would make this a rule. Infoboxes should be merely short summaries: in the article, and specifically in the "Ideology" and "Factions" sections, one can easily find more detailed infos.

In our case, it would be easy: only "social liberalism" could be mentioned for the Lib Dems, as the party is clearly social-liberal, not even liberal, in character. "Classical liberalism" should not be mentioned at all and also "pro-Europeanism" is quite redundant. --Checco (talk) 06:48, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Being Pro EU has been almost the party's sole selling point in recent years, to the point where they've picked up a lot of recruits without much adherence to actual liberalism. Although Brexit has now happened the Lib Dems have not yet decided whether they'll be a party that accepts what has happened & move on or become the party of incessant Rejoiners. Timrollpickering (talk) 11:46, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Checco, there is little classical-liberal about the LibDems, and it is an quite an exaggeration to list in the Infobox, where purely social liberalism should be listed – the party has always been of social-liberal inclination, and I'm quite puzzled why the article text overemphasises the economic and classical liberal elements of the party.--Autospark (talk) 14:45, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Autospark, Checco, please provide reliable sources if you want the article to reflect classical liberals, as well as some social democrats and greens (for that matter), in the party's ranks, [...] are just a tiny minority and that there is little classical-liberal about the LibDems because, as it stands, that's just your personal view which isn't supported by the main body, hence why classical liberalism and economic liberalism are mentioned. For example, Clark clearly states that Liberal Democrat ideology and policy through the lens of the two main ideological strands in the party, classical liberalism and more interventionist social liberalism and the sources we use talk of a significant economic liberalism strand, so I would oppose only using the social liberal label.

The main body also clearly discusses how the party leaned left and right through its existence and how economic liberalism was clearly emphasised over social liberalism during its right-leaning turns. I think the Liberal Democrats are a classical centrist liberal party (not in sense of classical liberalism), with strong social liberal and classical/economic liberal strands/factions, in contrast to more left-liberal parties who dominantly social liberal and social democrats in orientation and the more right-leaning liberals parties which are usually conservatives in countries like Britain.

Either way, I reiterate Ralbegen's comment that we should try to refocus it away from journalistic sources towards books and academic papers as far as possible rather the personal opinion, for the sourced main body disagree with your conclusions and if you would need to show reliable sources to support your proposing changes. All I want is for us to simply reflect what reliable sources say and from what I have found so far, they disagree with your claims. Maybe that's currently overemphasised but I think you go in the opposite direction of demphasising it too much. Under Clegg, they clearly weren't just a tiny minority and in the 2019 general election the party pursued a policy of equidistance between Labour and the Conservatives.--Davide King (talk) 09:34, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but its completely factually incorrect to describe the LibDems as some sort of left/right catch-all liberal party. It's always been a centre-left party, albeit one that has had more centrist-leaderships leaderships at certain times (arguably not unlike the UK Labour Party). And as for classical liberalism, pursuit of laissez-faire economics has barely if ever featured in the post-war Liberal Party, and absolutely not the modern LibDems itself.--Autospark (talk) 16:24, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Autospark, Heywood (2011) writes that [a]lthough they are the party most clearly associated with liberalism [not social liberalism], their liberalism encompasses both a classical liberal belief in a minimal state and the free market (reminiscent of economic Thatcherism) and a modern liberal belief in social and economic intervention that sometimes resembles social democracy so sources aren't referring to laissez-faire as you claim. Again, all you wrote may well be true, but we need to change the main body to reflect that. Again, we report that Paul Whiteley, Patrick Seyd and Antony Billinghurst argue that Liberal Democrat ideology does not fall easily into a simple left-right dimension and that the party has been sometimes seen as being more left-wing than Labour and other times more right-wing of Conservatives, so that doesn't seem to support your claim (I'm not opposed to your proposals, but we need to work on the main body and change it to better reflect that).--Davide King (talk) 08:41, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't feel like academic sources support ascribing classical liberalism and social liberalism as equal strains of the Liberal Democrats' ideology as a party. Often when classical liberalism is discussed in the context of the Liberal Democrats it's about how it's less emphasised compared to liberal parties in Europe (such as here) or about how the party has moved away from it. Crudely, this paper mentions classical liberalism in the text twice and social liberalism dozens of times. As in the discussion below, it's better for the summaries to grow out of the prose in the article, but I feel like social liberalism is much better supported as the ideology of the party, with classical liberalism and social democracy as strains within the party worth discussing. Based on a skim of Google Scholar, social democracy is a more substantial strain than classical liberalism. Ralbegen (talk) 18:11, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Ralbegen, then please let's work on the main body to reflect this and refocus it away from journalistic sources towards books and academic papers as far as possible which I support. I would support having only Liberalism in the Infobox or perhaps only Social liberalism if we first change the main body to reflect that.--Davide King (talk) 08:41, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Cool. I'll try to put something together in my sandbox but it's a big undertaking so may be some time. Ralbegen (talk) 10:29, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Okay, here's my first draft. I've tried to draft it based on summary style; I think the current version includes too many lists of politicians and manifesto commitments. If there's support, I'd like to implement my proposed Ideology section and split out much of the remainder of the current Ideology section into a Policy platform section. I think my draft better reflects the balance of academic RS coverage of the party as social liberal and centre to centre-left. Ralbegen (talk) 13:06, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

While it is good to have an in-depth "Ideology" section—and a "Factions" section as well, it quite inappropriate to list "Classical liberalism" and, possibly, even "Liberalism" in the infobox. This party was a mixture of liberals and social-democrats from the start and has always been on the centre-left, often positioning to the left of Labour (when Labour was New Labour). --Checco (talk) 07:04, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

I feel like everything you're saying here is reflected in the current version of the article? Following this discussion, I implemented my proposed version which included "classical liberalism" being removed from the infobox, keeping the start of the "ideology" section as a sentenc enoting the origins in liberalism and social democracy, and following reliable sources in describing it as a party of the centre and centre-left. Ralbegen (talk) 08:52, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Local Government

Local Government I note that little mention is made of the work of the party in local government. Ideally perhaps there ought to be a list of the local authorities the party has controlled with dates . This is a job for an enthusiast obviously (which I am not.) Spinney Hill (talk) 12:54, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Position should be Centre-left to centre-right

The stated "position" of the Lib Dem's should be centre-left to centre-right, not centre-left to centre. I acknowledge that there has often been an association of the Lib Dem's and the centre-left, but there is also some who state that they have, at times, been historically centre-right. So we need to account for the wider scope of the party's ideology. The Orange Booker branch which was the majority in the coalition government of 2010-2015 is, in particular, considered centre to centre-right (see The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism). Ed Davey, the man deemed likley to win the current leadership election, is associated with this branch. I have researched academic sources on the Lib Dem's and several reliable sources say that they have occasionally had centre-right tendencies:

• In 2010 the Lib Dem's were "led by a centre-right leadership team" - Britian at the Polls 2010 (ed.) by Nicholas Allen and John Bartle, p. 84.
• "The orange book therefore reflected a significant change in orientation, at least in part of the Liberal Democrat Party (although, at the same time, highlighting internal divisions), and arguably both foreshadowed and made easier a post-election centreright alignment, rather than the realignment of the centre-left that previous Liberal Democrat leaders had aspired to" - The transformation of the welfare state? The Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government and social policy by Hugh Bochel and Martin Powell in The coalition government and social policy: restructuring the welfare state, ed. Hugh Bochel and Martin Powell, p. 5.

• Some may argue that historically, the Lib Dem's have been a centre-left party, but, most importantly, respected major political author Paul Whiteley (who publishes well-known studies on every election) partly discredits this when stating in Third Force Politics: Liberal Democrats at the Grassroots (pp. 16-17): "...This evidence suggests that the view that the Liberal Democrats and the Liberals before them have always been in the political centre is simplistic. In the elections of 1955 and 1959, they were the party of the right, and in the elections of 1997 and 2001, the party of the left".

In summary, it would be more accurate to state that the party's position is centre-left to centre-right to cover all of the party's historical ideological positions. This is especially relevant since a member of the right-wing branch of the Lib Dem's is apparently about to claim victory in the 2020 leadership election, following Vince Cable and Nick Clegg. Geordie Cop (talk) 14:53, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

The problem is these claims violate the WP:SYNTHESIS rule as none of them explicitly call the party as a whole centre-right. They are referring to internal factions, make suggestions, and refer to the past. The political position section of the infobox is for the party's current political potion, not for historical ones. Helper201 (talk) 15:55, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Agree. In addition, we don't list historical positions in the infobox, we list what is current. — Czello 17:19, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

The LibDems should under no circumstances be described as "centre-right to centre-left", which is contradictory and confusing, as well as being factually inaccurate. If you consider from the referenced literature the LibDems to be a political party comprising centre-left and centre-right elements, then by definition you support "Centre" being the sole description in the Infobox's 'political position' heading.--Autospark (talk) 14:51, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

The party might have some minor centre-right factions, but it is broadly centre-left. I am fine with "Centre to Centre-left", but probably we could even take "Centre" out and leave just "Centre-left". Definitely, "Centre-left to Centre-right" is confusing and makes no sense. One could talk of big-tent party in case, but that is not the case of the Lib Dems. --Checco (talk) 16:26, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Classical liberalism

I am torn, but mostly believe the addition of "Classical liberalism" should be made to the infobox, it is not a small group, but seems to be a major political faction called "Orange Book" liberals within the party. When looking to the national parties devolved branches, they each state the parties classical liberal branch/grouping, minus Young Liberals (youth organisation). It could be helpful, in identifying the parties different ideological groupings. I would also recommend adding social democracy or at least starting a faction category in the infoboxes ideology section, but this seems to be the smallest faction, and is not added or sourced to any of the devolved parties ideology sections. All opinions wanted! I would ping a couple of people who follow this page, but don't know how to :( please everyone speak your mind :) B. M. L. Peters (talk) 22:39, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

My belief is that it should stay out of the infobox for the very reason that it's one group of people within the party. Ideally, the infobox should contain either broad ideologies that exist throughout the entire party, or a dominant position presently directing the party. I don't think classical liberalism fulfills either (any more). There are certainly CLs within the party, but it's more of a factional thing (which is mentioned under the ideology section of the article). Given that the party appears to have moved away from that since Clegg (not to mention that the Orange Book is almost 20 years old!) I think it'd be a bit WP:UNDUE for it to be in the infobox. — Czello 07:02, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Makes sense, thanks for your input! B. M. L. Peters (talk) 23:58, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Classical liberalism should absolutely not be in the Infobox. It is an exaggeration to state that the party is classical-liberal in orientation – even the more market-liberal friendly wing of the party are not laissez-faire classical liberals. As for the Orange Book, it is a fairly obscure pamphlet which is long out-of-print, and even then the more economically liberal policy suggestions in the pamphlet weren't exactly right-libertarian in scope.--Autospark (talk) 15:47, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

GLA representation

If we are going to include how many Liberal Democrats sit on the Greater London Assembly I think we should also include their representation on other major local authorities. Otherwise the reference to London should be removed. It should not be singled out for mentionSpinney Hill (talk) 10:23, 31 January 2021 (UTC).

Liberal Democrats history, philosophy

As we know, the Liberal Democrats is a party which formed from the merger of two parties: the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and those two parties no longer exist. This was a merger of two parties and their members. Its policies are now Liberal Democratic, not just Liberal and not just Social Democratic. This needs to be borne in mind when presenting the party and its policies. JRBC1 (talk) 14:10, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Political position

Currently the article describes the political position of the Liberal Democrats as ‘centre to centre-left’. There are many prominent people in the party, for example current leader Ed Davey and former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who would be placed on the centre-right of the political spectrum.

Therefore I believe ‘centre-left to centre-right’ would be a more fitting description.

• https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/was-ed-davey-a-bit-right-wing-for-a-tory-coalition-partner-/amp • https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2011/05/16/left-right-spectrum • https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/25/lib-dems-centrist-worldview-polarising-election Green450 (talk) 16:17, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

This strikes me as WP:SYNTH. Ultimately the majority of sources still place the party as being centre to centre-left. However, going into more detail with your sources: the first really talks about Davey as an individual, not the party at large; the second is more about public perception rather than a definitive statement; and the third is an opinion piece and therefore not reliable. — Czello 17:04, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I also think the spectrum of LibDem voters and members ranges from centre left to centre right, so it would be accurate to either describe it as that or simply describe it as in the centre JRBC1 (talk) 14:16, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Style of Politics

The Liberal Democrats formed out of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which had social democratic policies and political positions, and the Liberal Party, which had liberal policies and political positions.

Both original parties effectively disbanded, and the new hybrid party took on a hybrid of the previous parties' policies and positions, ie Liberal Democratic policies and positions.

It is therefore inaccurate, and displaying a form of partisan bias to suggest that the Liberal Democrats have 'liberal' policies and positions. They do not. They have Liberal Democratic policies and positions. JRBC1 (talk) 16:01, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

We go with what reliable sources say. I fail to see how it can be "partisan bias" do describe the LibDems as a liberal party. DuncanHill (talk) 16:26, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Classical Liberalism

Many prominent movements in the Liberal Democrats have been on the Orange Book (Classical Liberal) wing of the party. Especially since the party is currently led by an Orange-Booker, as well as doing well with leaders on the right of the party, perhaps it is time to consider the Classical Liberal ideology (associated with Davey, Swinson, Clegg etc) as well as the Social Liberal branch of the party (Cable, Farron etc) Tellik07 (talk) 20:29, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

That' is something already mentioned in the article body, mostly in the Ideology section. However, strictly speaking there aren't really classical liberals in the LibDems, in the sense of individuals who promote laissez-faire capitalism and desire for a minimal state. So I am not in favour of listing "classical liberalism" in the Infobox or lede, as that would be misleading in terms of describing the party's overall ideology to the lay reader.--Autospark (talk) 18:06, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

It is quite simple, in my view. The party's ideology is liberal and "liberalism" alone should be mentioned in the intro and the infobox. Subsets of liberalism, like "social liberalism", "cultural liberalism", "classical liberalism", "economic liberalism" and "conservative liberalism", are all in part represented in the Lib Dem's ideology and factions, but there is no need of mentioning them in the intro and the infobox. I would also remove "pro-Europeanism", which is policy, not an ideology. --Checco (talk) 14:14, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree about removing "pro-Europeanism", but still think we should list "social liberalism", as that strand of liberalism, the liberalism of Keynes and Beveridge, is arguably the strongest ideological current in the party and has been since its inception.--Autospark (talk) 16:22, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

I would agree with Autospark. Vacant0 (talk) 16:24, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

I disagree that "pro-Europeanism" should be removed; a lot of political parties in Europe are displayed on Wikipedia with "Euroscepticism" as an ideology. I would also argue this further since the current party stance can be summed up as "we want the UK to be closer to Europe, but we shouldn't just rejoin the EU right now, we have bigger problems". Chronque (talk) 00:09, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Portuguese language

This article already exists in Portuguese (here) but it doesn't show up as one of the options when you want to change languages. I don't know how to add it to the languages list. SantiagoCoelho (talk) 23:39, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Language links can be added on Wikidata, there's an "edit links" link at the bottom of the sidebar (in the English Wikipedia and on desktop, at least) which will take you to the right page on WD to do that.

Apparently the Portuguese article had its own (empty!) Wikidata item, so I've gone ahead and merged the two items together, and the link is now showing in the sidebar now.  M2Ys4U ^(talk) 23:53, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

2019 Election Results

In the overview the text reads "and a poor performance in the 2019 general election saw Swinson lose her seat." But the link to the election page shows that the party saw a 4% swing, comparing that with the -7% of Labour or the ~1% of the Tories/SNP suggests a relatively good performance that was adversely affected by FPTP.

I'd like to change it to read" and the 2019 general election saw Swinson lose her seat." A factual statement without any judgement of the performance. Would that be OK with others? Efan78 (talk) 02:39, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Agree, this is a more neutral statement. Go for it. — Czello ^(music) 07:43, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I agreeSpinney Hill (talk) 07:24, 12 June 2024 (UTC)