This year, 2013, marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Liberal Democrats. From near-annihilation to entry into government, the years since 1988 have been a roller-coaster ride for the party.

Discuss which factors were important in the survival and success of the Liberal Democrats, and speculate about the future, with:

Duncan Brack (Editor, Journal of Liberal History): on leadership and policy

Mark Pack (Liberal Democrats online campaign manager, 2001 and 2005): on campaigns

John Curtice (Professor Politics, Strathclyde University): who votes for the Liberal Democrats?

Cllr Julie Smith (Vice Chair, Lib Dem Policy Committee): on the impact of coalition

Chair: Paddy Ashdown (Chair, 2015 general election campaign)

A Liberal Democrat History Group fringe meeting

(note this is outside the conference secure area no passes necessary)

Between 1994 and 1999, Paddy Ashdown and Tony Blair led a process of collaboration between the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party, with the aim not merely of defeating the Conservatives but of establishing clear common ground between the progressive parties in British politics.

Some of the outcomes of this process – ‘the project’, in Ashdown’s phrase – were public, such as the programme of agreed constitutional reforms drawn up by Robin Cook and Robert Maclennan. Far more were secret: covert electoral collaboration in marginal seats during the 1997 election, attempts to agree a programme for government, talks about coalition – and hints of a more permanent alliance.

In the end, the size of Labour’s majority in 1997 destroyed the case for coalition, and the main outcome was a Joint Cabinet Committee between the two parties. What it achieved is not clear, and it was abandoned by Ashdown’s successor Charles Kennedy.

Now, in a period of cooperation between political parties very different from that envisaged by Ashdown and Blair, what can we learn from ‘the project’? What did it achieve? What could it have achieved under different circumstances? And what can it tell us about the desirability and achievability of collaboration between progressive forces?

Speakers:

Paddy Ashdown, Rt Hon Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon GCMG KBE
Leader of the Liberal Democrats 1988-99

Roger Liddle, Lord Liddle
Special Adviser to Bill Rodgers 1976-81; Member of the SDP and then Liberal Democrats 1981-94, member of the Lib Dem Federal Policy Committee; Special Adviser to Tony Blair 1997-2004

Rt Hon Pat McFadden MP
Adviser to Donald Dewar 1988-93, to John Smith 1993-94 and to Tony Blair 1994-2005

Chair: Steve Richards, Chief Political Commentator, The Independent

Jointly organised by the Liberal Democrat History Group and the Labour History Group

Winning local elections has been a keystone in Liberal (Democrat) success in the years since the adoption of the community politics strategy at the Eastbourne Assembly in 1970. There have been many spectacular advances across London, from the heartland of the south western boroughs to Southwark, Islington and more recently breakthroughs on Camden and Brent to share power there. But there are still black holes – ten London boroughs with no Lib Dem representation; and places like Harrow and Tower Hamlets where we controlled the council only to see a near wipe out follow.

In a meeting supported by the Lib Dem group on London Councils, the umbrella organisation representing all 32 London boroughs, the City of London, the Metropolitan Police Authority and the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, the History Group will look at the performance of Liberals in London local government since the 1970s with our speakers being two key players from the party. Cllr Stephen Knight of London Councils will chair the meeting and our speakers will be Cllr Sir David Williams, first elected for Ham and Petersham Ward in 1974 and a former leader of Richmond Council and London Assembly member Mike Tuffrey, who was also GLC/ILEA member for Vauxhall in the 1980s.

Twenty years ago a new political party was born from the merger of the Liberal and Social Democratic parties the Social & Liberal Democrats (or Salads, as the party was disparagingly nicknamed by its opponents).

This meeting will explore the political background to the merger and the byzantine process of negotiation through which it which it came about. Did it really deserve the description of merger most foul?

Speakers: Lord Clement-Jones, member of the Liberal merger negotiating team; Lord Goodhart, member of the SDP merger negotiating team; and Professor David Dutton, Liverpool University.

The Liberal Party and the SDP were the most pro-European of the British political parties. So how has their successor party fared in European politics since merger in 1988? How has the party adapted to the wide range of liberal thought represented by our sister parties in ALDE and ELDR?

Speakers: Graham Watson MEP (Leader of ALDE) will look at the record of the Lib Dem group in the European Parliament; Florus Wijsenbeek (former Dutch Liberal MP and first secretary-general of ELDR) will examine where the party fits on the European liberal spectrum and whether there have been changes in ideological or political position by the Lib Dems over the past twenty one years.

Chair: Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP