This article refers to the British political party. For similarly named parties in other countries, see Liberal Democratic Party.
Political parties Elections
The Liberal Democrats, often shortened to Lib Dems, is a liberal political party in the United Kingdom formed in 1988 by the merger of the Liberal Party and the short-lived Social Democratic Party; the two parties had already been in an alliance for some years prior to this.
The Liberal Democrats is the third-largest party in the UK Parliament, behind Labour and the Conservatives, with 63 Members of Parliament (MPs) - 62 elected at the general election of 2005, they held Cheadle in the Cheadle by-election (July 2005) and gained one at the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election (February 2006). In the last session of the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Liberal Democrats formed part of the coalition Scottish Executive with Labour, with the Lib Dems supplying the Deputy First Minister, Nicol Stephen. The party's acting leader is Vincent Cable, after Sir Menzies Campbell resigned as leader on the 15th October 2007.
Generally promoting social liberalism, the Liberal Democrats as a principle seek to minimise state intervention in personal affairs in the United Kingdom and throughout the world, with many Lib Dem MPs criticising such intervention as symptomatic of a "nanny state", but unlike some other liberal parties, the Liberal Democrats were not founded on an explicit doctrine of economic liberalism instead favouring combining a commitment to social justice and the welfare state with a belief in economic freedom and competitive markets wherever possible. The party's Presidential Book of Office, passed between outgoing and incoming Presidents, is John Stuart Mill's On Liberty.
The party is traditionally supportive of a multilateral foreign policy, and opposed British participation in the War in Iraq and now support a swift withdrawal of troops in Iraq by October 2007. They are considered the most pro-European party in British politics.
In the past decade the party has adopted a strong sense of environmentalist values - favouring taxing high polluters more so than at the moment. Since the 2006 Liberal Democrat Party Conference, in Brighton, the party has switched to favour cutting the basic rate of income tax by 'two pence in the pound' while proposing raising tax rates on annual earnings above £100,000, a significant alteration of their policy towards fiscal neutrality and away from increasing tax revenue for purposes of redistribution that had previously been considered an "Old Labour" position.

History of the Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats were formed on 3 March 1988 as a result of a merger between the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party, as such the party has the legacy of both the Liberal Party and the old Labour right; the Liberals were themselves descended from the British Whig Party.
Having declined to third party status after the rise of the Labour Party in 1922, the Liberals found themselves challenged for their place as the centrist party of British politics in the 1980s, when in 1981, with the Labour Party adopting hardline socialist policies, a group of moderate Labour MPs broke away and established the Social Democratic Party (SDP), claiming as their goal to preserve previous Labour Party traditions. The SDP and the Liberals soon realised that there was no place for two centrist political parties, and entered into the SDP-Liberal Alliance so that they would not stand against each other in elections. The two parties drew up their own policies and had different emphases, but produced a joint manifesto for the 1983 and 1987 General Elections. Initially the Alliance was led by David Steel (Liberal) and Roy Jenkins (SDP), the latter of whom was later replaced by David Owen (SDP).
In 1987, following disappointing results in that year's general election, Steel proposed a merger of the two parties. Although opposed by David Owen, it was supported by a majority of members of each and the two parties formally merged in 1988, with David Steel and Robert Maclennan (who had become SDP leader in August 1987) as interim joint leaders. At the time of the merger, in 1988, the party took the name Social and Liberal Democrats (SLD). After briefly shortening its name in October 1988 to The Democrats, it changed to the current name of Liberal Democrats in October 1989, which is now frequently shortened to "Lib Dems".
The minority of the SDP who rejected the merger remained under David Owen's leadership. Some Liberals disliked the direction the party was going in after Paddy Ashdown's election as leader and created a new party which revived the name "Liberal Party".

Founding

Post-1988 history
The former Liberal MP Paddy Ashdown became leader of the new party in July 1988. The new party had a difficult birth and innitially struggled to assert an identity, especially after the two name changes. At the 1989 European Elections the Liberal Democrats received only 6% of the vote, being beaten into fourth place by the Green Party.
By the early 1990s however, the party under Ashdown's leadership began to recover. The party saw a revival in fortunes at the 1990 Local elections. Several by-election victories in the early 1990s at Eastbourne (1990) Ribble Valley (1991) and Kincardine & Deeside (1991) improved the party's standing and morale.
The Lib Dems did not immediately manage to repeat the 20%+ shares of national vote which the SDP/Liberal alliance had achieved in the 1980s. The 1992 general election the first general election contested by the Lib Dems was disappointing, with the party winning 17.8% of the vote and twenty seats. They did manage to more than double their representation in Parliament at the 1997 General Election, largely through tactical voting and concentration of resources on winnable seats, rather than increases in support. Throughout the 1990s the party became a major force in local government.
Following the election of Tony Blair as leader of the Labour Party in 1994, Ashdown controversially pursued a policy of cooperation between the two parties (with the two leaders even allegedly agreeing to form a coalition government). However this Lib-Lab pact failed to materialise when it became apparent to the Liberal Democrats that Labour would not introduce proportional representation and other key Liberal Democrat demands. Labour's massive majority after the 1997 general election also meant that Blair lost interest in pursuing the issue, and some senior Labour politicians (such as John Prescott) were strongly opposed to a coalition.

Ashdown (1988-99)
Ashdown retired as leader in 1999
At the 2005 general election, the Liberal Democrats gained their highest share of the vote since the days of the SDP-Liberal Alliance, receiving 62 seats. However, many had anticipated that this election would prove to be the Lib Dem's great breakthrough at Westminster, with some party activists even hoping to reach 100 MPs. From this perspective, 2005 could be considered a wasted opportunity for the Liberal Democrats, although many commentators point to the irregularity of the first-past-the-post electoral system that sees the party get about one-quarter of the total votes nationally but only one-tenth of the parliamentary seats.
One of the more interesting trends observed at the election was the Lib Dems replacing the Conservatives as Labour's main opponents in several urban areas. Many of the party's gains came in previously Labour-held urban constituencies (e.g. Manchester Withington, Cardiff Central, Birmingham Yardley), and the party also notably achieved over 100 second-place finishes behind Labour candidates. The long-term implications of this trend in British politics could be profound, since the current British electoral system, if it is not reformed, makes it nearly impossible for the Conservatives to return a government without winning some city seats (such as the now Lib Dem Bristol West constituency, where the Conservatives placed third in 2005 after holding the seat until 1997).

Kennedy (1999-2006)
The Conservatives' choice of David Cameron as leader in late 2005 led some senior Lib Dems to question whether Charles Kennedy was capable of dealing with the future challenges facing the party. In a personal statement on 5 January 2006, Charles Kennedy admitted to a long personal battle with alcoholism, and announced a leadership election. Despite initially planning to stand as a candidate, Kennedy soon decided to withdraw from the election and Sir Menzies Campbell took over as acting leader.
Despite a barrage of negative press attention over Kennedy's departure, the leaderless party pulled off a spectacular electoral shock by winning the Dunfermline and West Fife seat from Labour in a by-election in February 2006. This was viewed as a particular blow for Gordon Brown, who lives in the constituency, represents the adjacent seat, and was featured prominently in the campaign.
Sir Menzies subsequently won the leadership contest, defeating rivals Chris Huhne and Simon Hughes, a race that saw Mark Oaten withdraw at an early stage due to a relationship with a rent boy, Simon Hughes come under attack regarding deception about his personal life and Chris Huhne accused live on The Daily Politics of attempting to rig polls.
Despite taking second place in the Bromley and Chislehurst by-election, overtaking Labour, opinion poll trends since Campbell assumed the leadership have shown support for the Liberal Democrats to have declined to less than 20%.

Campbell (2006-2007)
In United Kingdom general elections from 1992 on the Liberal Democrats have succeeded the Liberal-SDP Alliance and Liberal Party as the third most popular grouping or party behind Labour and the Conservatives. While the party initially declined slightly from successes achieved by the Alliance, it has now steadily risen in seat count for a decade to its current peak of 63 seats despite never quite achieving the popular vote success of the Alliance; this has been largely credited to improved skill at targeting vulnerable seats. While the Alliance vote percentage in 1987 and the Liberal Democrat percentage in 2005 were comparable, the Liberal Democrats won 62 seats to their predecessor's 22. (The Commons has a total of 646 seats.)
The British first past the post electoral system is not suited to parties whose vote is evenly divided across the nation where their vote is less than a third of the vote resulting in them achieving a lower proportion of seats in the House of Commons than their proportion of the popular vote, and the Liberal Democrats and their forerunners have suffered in particular. This was especially true in 1983 and 1987 when their popular electoral support was greatest; their increase in the number of seats in 1997 and 2001 is sometimes attributed to the weakness of the Conservative Party.
The Liberal Democrats have generally performed better in local elections, and are a more significant force in local government, with 27 councils under Liberal Democrat majority control, and Lib Dems in joint control of many others. They have generally performed more poorly in elections to the European Parliament: for example in local elections on 10 June 2004, the Lib Dem national share of the vote was 29% (giving them second place, ahead of Labour) but only 15% in the simultaneous European elections (putting them in fourth place behind the United Kingdom Independence Party).
They were coalition partners with Labour in the Scottish Parliament from its establishment in 1999 until 2007, when the Scottish National Party took power, and were also in coalition with Labour in the National Assembly for Wales from 2001 to 2003.
In the 2006 local elections across England, the Lib Dems beat Labour into second place on the national share of the vote gained when they won 27% of the vote. However, this only resulted in a net gain of two Councillors. The Liberal Democrats continued to make gains from Labour in many northern cities.

Electoral results
The Liberal Democrats describe their ideology as giving "power to the people". They state they are against the undemocratic concentration of power in unaccountable bodies. They propose decentralisation of power out of Westminster. They would also create a system of tiered government structures to make decisions at what they see as the right level, including regional assemblies, the European Union, and international organisations.
In keeping with the principle of decentralisation of power, the Liberal Democrats are keen protectors of civil liberties and oppose intervention of the state in personal affairs. For this reason, they have been popular amongst campaigners for the decriminalisation of recreational drugs.

Ideology
Since the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major the Liberal Democrats and their precursor Liberal party have been seen as the centrist party of British politics, although Tony Blair did reposition the Labour Party firmly to the centre in the 1990s. With a few exceptions (most notably Paddy Ashdown),

Left of Labour?
The Liberal Democrats' constitution speaks of "a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity. We champion the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals". To this end:
The most well-known Liberal Democrat policy for most of the 1990s was to increase the basic rate of income tax by one percent to fund public services (especially education). This proposal was abandoned after Tony Blair's Labour government increased national insurance contributions by the same amount, a policy with much the same effect. Other previous fiscal policy included increasing the top rate of income tax by 10 percent to 50% for those earning over £100,000 to fund their increased public spending plans, but this was abandoned in 2006 after the party conference approved new tax policies which left the top rate at 40%. They also propose to replace Council Tax with local income taxes. In 2003 the Liberal Democrats started to make their long-held pledge to abolish Council Tax a centrepiece of their campaign.
The Liberal Democrats opposed UK participation in the 2003 Iraq war prior to the conflict, but stated that they would support UK forces that had been ordered to fight while it was taking place. After the initial military action was completed, they renewed their political opposition.
The period following 2001 saw an internal discussion about the right policies for the party on economics and public spending, with some party members advocating that the party position itself as a defender of the traditional welfare state in order to gain support from those who had previously voted Labour. Others, most notably David Laws, advocated a policy of smaller government and free-market liberalism (the Orange Book published in 2004 was an example of this wing of the Liberal discussion). The party announced its policy of abolishing the Department for Trade and Industry in 2004.
Current party policies can be found on the party website:
The Liberal Democrats are a member party of the Liberal International and the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party and their 12 MEPs form part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group in the European Parliament.

They support civil liberties, and have opposed the more authoritarian of Labour's anti-terror laws (e.g., detention without trial).
They support more open government, including substantial reforms to increase parliamentary oversight of the executive.
They support the decentralisation of power to the lowest possible level.
They are (devolutionist) unionists on the subject of Scottish independence, and are allied with the Alliance Party in Northern Ireland, which has unionist leanings.
They are in favour of full UK participation in the European Union and an early referendum on joining the Euro.
They support "free education for all" and propose to abolish university tuition fees and set up a system of Government grants for university students.
They propose a substantial non-means tested increase in pensions.
They support an amnesty for illegal migrants who have lived in the UK for at least 10 years and do not have a criminal record.
They oppose the "protectionist labour market restrictions" imposed by many European governments on legal migrants from the new EU member states.
Most recent manifesto (external link)
Detailed policy papers (external link) Policies
Unlike the other main political parties in the United Kingdom, which have either firmly opposed or merely paid lip service to the concept, the Lib Dems have always strongly advocated Proportional representation. This has always been a cornerstone of the Party's policies, and on many occasions has been cited as a key requirement of any Lib Dem involvement in a coalition government. Several deals have been struck with Labour and Conservative leaders in the past, promising Liberal and Lib Dem support in return for a commitment to consider the introduction of PR, but the two major parties have always found it more advantageous to stick with first-past-the-post.
Both the Liberal Democrats and its Liberal and SDP predecessors have suffered under the current first past the post voting system since the 1920s. They have maintained a substantial part of the popular vote while being unable to focus that support in specific constituencies. This has been less of a problem in the 2001 and 2005 general elections, with the party focusing its resources on key winnable constituencies. Many credit this to the party's chief election strategist Lord Rennard.
There is currently a debate within the party as to whether this should remain such a high-profile issue.
The party has usually advocated the adoption of the single transferable vote with multi-member constituencies. A common debate in the party revolves around whether or not to give support to other forms of proportional representation that the party regards as flawed, such as the closed party lists for the European Parliament, since it may make it harder to achieve the single transferable vote.

Proportional representation
Broadly speaking, Liberal Democrats can be classified into two main political factions:
Social liberals have dominated the party since its formation in 1988. Drawing inspiration from the likes of David Lloyd George, William Beveridge and John Maynard Keynes, individuals from this wing of the party are keen advocates of the welfare state, higher taxation, and of government regulation to protect consumers, employees and the environment. Support for civil liberties and human rights is key to the social liberal outlook. Examples of social liberals within the modern parliamentary party include Paul Holmes, Norman Baker and Simon Hughes.
The market liberal or libertarian wing of the party shares with social liberals a belief in basic civil and political freedoms (negative freedoms). However, whereas social liberals further argue that the state should provide additional social and economic rights to its citizens (positive freedoms), market liberals take a non-interventionist approach and are critical of government's ability to increase freedom. This often manifests itself as support for greater economic freedom, causing some tension between the two wings of the party. Many MPs from this wing contributed to the Orange Book (2004), a collection of essays intended to spark debate on a greater role for free-market liberalism in party policy, which led some commentators to question whether the party was undergoing a shift to the right. Some party donors, elements of the media and many non-urban elected party officials are known to back this wing of the party. Leading market liberals within the parliamentary party include Vincent Cable, David Laws and Nick Clegg.
It would be easy, but misleading, to presume to characterise these two wings of the party as consisting of former SDP members and former Liberal Party members respectively. However, many prominent social liberals (including Paddy Ashdown) were former Liberal MPs, whereas some prominent market liberals (such as Vincent Cable) came to the Liberal Democrats from the SDP. Content of personnel in these two wings are almost totally unrelated to such former party affiliation, whereas some ideological features of these wings can be said to have been stronger represented in former element parties.

Internal factions
The Liberal Democrats are a central federal party comprising the state parties of Wales, Scotland and England, with around 72,000 affiliated members in total. Scotland and England are further split into regional parties. There are a number of Specified Associated Organisations (SAOs), representing particular groupings such as Ethnic Minorities (EMLD), Women (WLD), LGBT people (Delga), Youth & Student (LDYS), Trade Unionists (ALDTU), Engineers & Scientists (ALDES), Parliamentary Candidates (PCA) and Local Councillors (ALDC) which formally review and input to party policy. Other groups can become Associated Organisations (AOs) as pressure groups within the party.One group notable by their omission are the Liberal Clubs(NULC),this may be because many Liberal Working Men's Clubs formed in the 1800s have broken their ties with politics (see CIU) or gone over to the more working class based Labour Party.
The Parliamentary Parties - in the House of Commons, in the House of Lords and in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly - form semi-autonomous units within the party. The leaders in the House of Commons and the Scottish Parliament are the leaders of the federal party and of the Scottish Party; the leaders in the other two chambers and the other officers of all the parliamentary parties are elected by those parties from amongst their own number.
The Liberal Democrats, like the Conservatives, organise in Northern Ireland. However, unlike the Conservatives, the Lib Dems have chosen not to contest elections in the province. Instead, they have opted to work with the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, with the de facto agreement that the Liberal Democrats will support the Alliance Party in elections. Indeed, many individuals, including several notable parliamentarians and Alliance Party leader David Ford, hold membership of both parties. Alliance members of the House of Lords take the Liberal Democrat whip on non-Northern Ireland issues, and the Alliance Party always maintains a stall set out at the Liberal Democrat Party Conference.

Structure

List of Liberal Democrat MPs
Liberal Democrat Leader in the House of Lords
Scottish Liberal Democrats
Welsh Liberal Democrats
Liberalism
Contributions to liberal theory
Liberalism worldwide
List of liberal parties
Liberal democracy
Liberalism in the United Kingdom
LDYS
Liberal Democrat Christian Forum
British politics
Federalism
Community politics
EARS
SDP
Glee Club
Green Liberal Democrats
The Land
Beveridge Group
charter88
Labour Party (UK)
Conservative Party See also
See also List of United Kingdom Liberal Democrat leaders
Notes:-
Further information: Liberal Democrats leadership election, 2006
Further information: Liberal Democrats leadership election, 2007

Interim leader between the resignation of Menzies Campbell on 15 October 2007 and the leadership election on 17 December 2007. Leaders of the Liberal Democrats
Further information: Liberal Democrats deputy leadership election, 2006

Russell Johnston, 1988 - 1992
Alan Beith, 1992 - 2003
Sir Menzies Campbell, 2003 – 2007
Vincent Cable, 2007 Deputy Leaders of the Parliamentary Party of the Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats did not have representation in the European Parliament prior to 1994.

Graham Watson, 1994 - 2002 (elected President of the ELDR Group)
Diana Wallis, 2002 - 2004
Chris Davies, 2004 - 2006
Diana Wallis, 2006 - 2007. (appointed Vice-President of the European Parliament)
Andrew Duff, 2007 - Present. Leaders of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party in the European Parliament
Further information: Liberal Democrat Frontbench Team

Liberal Democrat Frontbench Team

State Parties

London Assembly Liberal Democrats
Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors
Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidates Association
Delga: Liberal Democrats for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Action
Liberal Democrat Youth & Students
Liberal International British Group
Liberal Future
The Beveridge Group
Liberal Democrats Online Historical information

Liberal Democrats at the Open Directory Project
Yahoo! Liberal Democrat Party