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18/Spring 98 Journal of Liberal Democrat History issue 18 spring 1998 £5.00 Ten Years On The Legacy of the Alliance and Merger Bill Rodgers Alan Beith MP Richard Holme Willie Goodhart Michael Meadowcroft Dick Newby Tim Clement-Jones Graham Watson Stuart Mole Dr Tudor Jones Liberal Democrat History Group Issue 18: Spring 1998 The Journal of Special issue: Liberal Democrat The Legacy of the Liberal-SDP Alliance History The Journal of Liberal Democrat 4 The SDP’s Ideological Legacy History is published quarterly by the Dr Tudor Jones Liberal Democrat History Group. The History Group promotes the 8 The Merger Debate in the SDP 1981–87 discussion and research of historical Bill Rodgers topics, particularly those relating to the histories of the Liberal Democrats, 12 Alliance Days Liberal Party and the SDP. Richard Holme For more information on the Liberal Democrat History Group, including details of back issues of the Journal, 14 The Alliance: Two-Party Cooperation in Practice tape records of meetings. Dick Newby ‘Mediawatch’, ‘Thesiswatch’ and Research in Progress services, see our web site: 17 The Alliance: Parties and Leaders http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/ Michael Meadowcroft ~dbrack/ldhg/index.html 32 The Merger Process: An SDP Retrospect Editorial/Correspondence Willie Goodhart Contributions to the Journal – letters, articles, and book reviews – are invited, preferably on disc or by email. 36 The Two Davids Contributions should be sent to: Graham Watson Duncan Brack (Editor) Flat 9, 6 Hopton Road, 38 The Alliance and After London SW16 2EQ. email: [email protected]. The Travelling of a Necessary Road Stuart Mole All articles copyright © their authors. Subscriptions/Membership 41 One Man’s Pride An annual subscription to the Journal Owen and his Impact on the Alliance of Liberal Democrat History costs Tim Clement-Jones £7.50 (£4.00 unwaged rate); this includes membership of the History Group unless you inform us otherwise. 43 Merger Hopes and Fears: Were they Realised? Send a cheque (payable to ‘Liberal Alan Beith MP Democrat History Group’) to: Patrick Mitchell, 6 Palfrey Place, 45 Reviews London SW8 1PA; email [email protected] Greaves and Pitchford, Merger: The Inside Story Sykes, Losing from the Inside Published by Liberal Democrat History Group, 48 Research Notes c/o Flat 9, 6 Hopton Road, London Chronology of key Alliance dates SW16 2EQ. Printed by Kall-Kwik, 426 Chiswick Bibliography: sources on Alliance history High Road, London W4 5TF. March 1998. 2 journal of liberal democrat history 18: spring 1998 Editorial A Liberal Democrat History Group Fringe Meeting The Alliance Years The Struggle for Women’s Rights This issue of the Journal of Liberal with Democrat History goes to press as the Liberal Democrats prepare to cel- Johanna Alberti (Newcastle University) ebrate their tenth birthday. and It aims to explore the question: Shirley Williams what did the new party inherit from the old, Liberals, Social Democrats 8.00–9.30pm, Friday 13 March and Alliance? What is the legacy of the seven years, from to ’, Royal Clifton Hotel, Southport during which Britain experienced the phenomenon of two separate and distinct political parties fighting elections on a common platform, view at the time); that the experi- bear at least as much, and possibly with agreed policy positions? What ence of working in alliance brought more, of the blame for the failures are the lessons to be learned from Liberals and Social Democrats to- of the Alliance and of merger than that unique period of cooperation? gether so closely that for most, should David Owen. Above all, why did a political force merger seemed an inevitable and We hope that these contributions that was regularly perceived as a se- desirable destinations; that far and – in the longest Journal the History rious contender for power with the away the biggest drawback of the Al- Group has produced – will spark in- Conservative and Labour Parties liance was the hours spent – and terest, controversy and debate. Bear- consistently fail to achieve its prom- wasted – in painful internal nego- ing in mind our mission to promote ise, and collapsed with such speed tiations, over seats and policy posi- the research of historical topics, we into mutual recrimination and inter- tions; that, more than anything else, have also included a new section, nal conflict? it was the ambition and judgement ‘Research Notes’, with a concise Our contributors write from of David Owen that undermined the bibliography and chronology of the many different backgrounds and per- Alliance and made the merger proc- Alliance period. Additions to these, spectives. Most of them share cer- ess so unnecessarily painful. and responses to any of the articles, tain beliefs: that the Gang of Four Most, but not all. Michael will be – as ever – very welcome. and their followers were right to Meadowcroft powerfully argues the Duncan Brack (Editor) leave the Labour Party and found a case that involvement in the Alliance new political organisation; that, once actually held back the Liberal cause the SDP was formed, it would have in Britain, that the Liberal Party The cartoons on pages been electoral suicide for it and the would have prospered more in the 27 and 42 were reproduced Liberal Party to fight each other s if the SDP had never been with the kind permission of (though that was not the universal formed, and that David Steel must Martin Horwood. Monday – Friday 9.00am – 6.30pm Saturday 10.00am – 6.00pm Sunday 11.00am – 5.00pm 8 Artillery Row, Westminster, London SW1P 1RZ Tel: 0171 828 0010 Fax: 0171 828 8111 Email: politico’[email protected] Website: http://www.politicos.co.uk Britain’s Premier Political Bookstore journal of liberal democrat history 18: spring 1998 3 The SDP’s Ideological Legacy What was the ideological inheritance of the Social Democratic Party? And what did it bequeath to the Liberal Democrats? Dr Tudor Jones analyses what the SDP stood for. Although at its foundation in the Social Developed mainly by Gaitskell’s parliamen- tary supporters, revisionist socialist thought Democratic Party was the first significant new party found its most coherent expression in Anthony in British politics since , it inherited a long Crosland’s major work The Future of Socialism ideological tradition. The core values and beliefs and (). The analysis which underpinned Crosland’s principal arguments focused both on distinctive themes of that tradition – British social major changes in the pattern of economic democracy – were to shape the character and broad power in Britain since and on the policy approach of the new party and were thus to achievement during that period of full employ- ment and sustained economic growth by means influence, too, the Alliance which the SDP was to of Keynesian macroeconomic intervention. form with the Liberal Party. Such developments, Crosland persuasively ar- gued, had removed many of the deep flaws of prewar capitalism. The social-democratic Fortified by this theoretical analysis, revi- tradition since 1945 sionist social democracy proceeded to challenge entrenched Labour orthodoxies in two ways. Most of the former Labour MPs and many First, it repudiated the traditional view that so- of the other new members who joined the cialism could be identified, above all, with the SDP in the early s had been influenced public ownership of the means of production. by the assumptions and values of British social It thereby questioned the established Labour democracy. Since this term had gradu- commitment to extensive public ownership as ally come to mean, in Hamilton’s succinct defi- the precondition for achieving all major re- nition, ‘a non-transformative type of socialism formist objectives. or social reform’ in the sense that it offered an Second, Labour revisionism presented a dis- ideological approach that sought ‘amelioration tinctive ethical interpretation of socialism in of injustice and the promotion of common terms of core values such as personal liberty, welfare and a measure of equality .... rather than social welfare and, in particular, social equality, transformation of the economic and social ideal ends that could be pursued, it was now structure’. argued, within the context of a mixed economy. During the s and early s this so- Moreover, from this ethical perspective the tra- cial democratic approach in Britain became ditional doctrine of public ownership – as en- synonymous with the revisionist tendency shrined in Clause IV of the Labour Party con- within the Labour Party. This amounted to a stitution – was viewed as merely one useful deliberate attempt, most apparent after means among several others for realising en- following Hugh Gaitskell’s accession to the during socialist values and ideals. party leadership, to reformulate the principles Throughout the s and early ’s revi- of democratic socialism and to revise Labour sionist ideas on public ownership, economic policies through a new analysis of economic strategy and social policy were further devel- and social changes in postwar Britain. oped and promoted – notably by Crosland, 4 journal of liberal democrat history 18: spring 1998 Five years after the Limehouse Declaration: Shirley Williams, David Owen, Roy Jenkins and Bill Rodgers at Bath, 25 January 1986. Gaitskell, Douglas Jay and Roy Politically and ideologically, too, the purposes of ‘a new-model liber- Jenkins – and incorporated into party British social democracy seemed an tarian decentralist social democ- policy documents such as Industry and increasingly marginalised force by racy’. Although little systematic Society ().The economic founda- the late s. On its left flank it progress was made in that direction, tion on which those ideas rested was found itself challenged within the both Marquand, by implication, and a firmly Keynesian one since that Labour Party by the revived funda- Roy Jenkins, more explicitly, indi- creed offered the techniques by mentalist socialism of Tony Benn and cated that a new political vehicle which future Labour governments his supporters.
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