28 Lippiatt Liberliam in the West

the picture changed radically. Of forty- six MPs elected, twenty-one came from the territory which starts at ReportsReports Land’s End, comes as far east as Port- smouth and goes as far north as Cheltenham and Oxford. This represents a massive change in the power balance in the Parliamentary Liberalism in the West Liberal Democrats. In the post-war period up until , apart from North Fringe meeting, March 2000 Dorset in , and the Isle of Wight, with Michael Steed and Malcolm Brown held by Stephen Ross in the s, no seat was won outside Devon and Report by Graham Lippiatt Cornwall in the extended South West area. But in Paddy Ashdown won Ye ovil and in Bath and Chelten- he general election of electoral terms. Is it the heartland of ham were added and the expansion had Tproduced a block of twelve Cornwall and Devon; or a wider entity begun. So there may be more contem- Liberal Democrat MPs from the corresponding with the Government porary rather than historical explana- counties of Devon, Cornwall and Office for the South West, which tions to Liberal strength. Somerset. With Spring Conference includes Bristol, Dorset, Gloucester- Looking at historical data, all five taking place in Plymouth, it shire and Wiltshire; or for the purposes seats in Cornwall were won by the seemed an ideal venue in which to of his analysis for the seminar, an Liberals at the general election of , hold a History Group seminar focus- extended South West, up to a line from but only one other seat in the full ing on the strength and survival of the Isle of Wight to Oxford? He South West, East Dorset. In Liberalism in the West Country. returned to this question later in his however the shape was totally different. Matthew Taylor, MP for Truro, talk but set out first the three angles Liberals had won a majority of the agreed to chair and introduce the from which he intended to approach seats in Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, meeting. The speakers were, Michael the issue of Liberal and Liberal Demo- Wiltshire, Berkshire, and even in Steed, the psephologist of the Univer- crat historical electoral strength. Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire. By sity of Kent at Canterbury and Liberal The first was the nature of regional , apart from the core of seats in candidate for Truro at the variation, why people vote differently Cornwall and one in the north of general election, and Malcolm Brown according to where they live. Standard Devon, the other clutch of Liberal seats who had agreed to stand in at short political textbooks written by theo- was in East Anglia. Bedfordshire notice when Adrian Lee of Plymouth rists of either a Marxian or right-wing returned two out of three MPs in University was no longer able to perspective, or media commentators and . Huntingdonshire, now attend and speak. Malcolm was agent with a London-centric viewpoint, tell supposedly the safest Conservative seat in the Truro constituency, first to us that people vote principally on the in the country, was won quite easily by David Penhaligon and afterwards to basis of class, as consumers of political the Liberals in . Is this regional Matthew Taylor. services or on the basis of the mes- success the same phenomenon as that Matthew kicked off the meeting by sages they receive through the cen- in the South West, or a geographical revealing that Michael Steed was the tralised media. Yet the reality is that accident which just happened to meet first political candidate with whom he British electoral behaviour varies a somewhere north of Wiltshire on a had ever shook hands and for whom great deal geographically. Secondly, he once-only basis? he ever wore an election sticker. explored the nature of the Liberal One source of data which throws Michael was canvassing support among tradition and lastly, examined the light on the topic is Henry Pelling’s parents of children at St Paul’s school, psephology of the issue. study of election results down to . Truro, which Matthew attended, In preparing the background The election of was atypical during the election campaign. material for the talk, the problem of because of the support in Cornwall for Unfortunately, Matthew’s parents, what the South West actually is be- Liberal Unionism as a result of sympa- although thinking that Michael was comes apparent straightaway and it is thy for Northern Irish Presbyterianism the best candidate on offer, decided to difficult to be sure that the data relate among Cornish nonconformists. After support the Labour Party on the basis to the same things at different stages of , Scotland and Wales stand out as that Labour had lost only narrowly in history. From – the strength of having about % higher levels of and might just do it this time. the Liberal Democrats and their support for Liberal politics than the Michael Steed began by raising the predecessor parties at general elections average across the whole country. On question of just where the West was founded mainly in Scotland and any measure, before the First World Country actually is in political and Wales – the Celtic fringe. But in War, the Liberals had massive extra 22 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 28 Autumn 2000 strength in Scotland and Wales. The formed in the mid-nineteenth areas which had been Liberal strong- Celtic fringe, in that sense, is deeply century began to get stripped out. holds in the late nineteenth century, or embedded in Liberal history. The That coalition drew strength from the richer farming areas, but rural areas survival of the Liberal Parliamentary industrial, working-class interests and with substantial numbers of agricul- party in the mid to late twentieth provincial, nonconformist, social- tural labourers, small farmers and small century was based upon that history reforming, principled, moral interests. towns. This overlays a socioeconomic and tradition. But what about the It was a genuinely diverse and pluralist explanation on top of the noncon- South West region? On average, party – much more so than anyone formist one – which fits perfectly the although Devon and Cornwall are believes it possible for a political party profile of the South West as an area of marginally stronger, it does not appear to be today. That combination of small farms and small towns, where to amount to anything significant. It support enabled it to win elections. Liberal values could be held on to cannot therefore be said that Liberal What happened with the rise of much more easily and readily in the strength in the South West in the s Labour was that some elements of the inter-war period. or the s is based upon a tradition coalition, such as the miners, were Added to these considerations, the which can be seen to exist in the stripped away from the Liberals nonconformist tradition chimed in nineteenth or early twentieth centu- almost totally, and those which with Liberal beliefs and values. The ries. This is in marked contrast with the remained, such as nonconformity, two key essences of nonconformity are Conservative strength in the South therefore mattered more for the a deeply held social conscience and a East corner of England which has a survival of Liberal representation. strong belief in self-reliance. These two real continuity from the present day One of the main elements, there- elements were met specifically in the back to the late nineteenth century. fore, of Liberal support in the West Liberal Party in a way which could not The other interesting source of Country is the extent of noncon- be expressed in either of the other two data relates to nonconformity in the formist strength there in the inter-war main parties. The Conservatives s and s. This comes from period. On Kinnear’s figures, the most appealed to self-reliance at times and work carried out by Michael Kinnear nonconformist county in England managed to take some nonconformist for his Atlas of the British Voter, pub- was Cornwall, and the second, Bed- support as a result. Labour clearly was a lished in . As part of his survey, fordshire, where two of three MPs party with a social conscience. But the Kinnear added together the numbers returned in were Liberals. particular mix of the two was only of nonconformist church members in A further part of the explanation of available from the Liberals and had a their circuits and districts and tried to Liberal strength is that the sort of seats stronger appeal than individual policy compare them, as far as possible, to which stayed Liberal tended to be issues such as church schools or Parliamentary constituencies outside made up of small agricultural towns. temperance. The social history and Greater London. He was able to show This fits the pattern, for example, in literature of the eighteenth, nineteenth an extraordinarily strong relationship Buckinghamshire, which returned two and early twentieth centuries featured between nonconformist worship and out of three seats as Liberals in ; it the contrast of church and chapel, not Liberal parliamentary representation. was then a mainly agricultural county as a religious contest but a political In constituencies with strong non- with many small towns. The seats one. Church was hierarchy and author- conformist populations, Liberal which fell to the Liberals in ity, chapel was democracy and, particu- candidates were successful in a quarter tended not to be either the industrial larly, local democracy. In a sense, it was to a third of contests. In weaker areas of nonconformity the rate of success was as low as %. This suggests that the association of Liberal parliamentary representation with nonconformity was actually stronger in the s and s than it had been in the period before the First World War.

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