Sunday, October 11, 2009

Who do the Liberal Democrats represent?

Max Atkinson has Jo Grimond's answer to this question - or at least who the Liberal Party represented - in the 1959 general election campaign.

Grimond saw the Liberals as representing an emerging new class - neither employer nor employee. Max Atkinson asks:
Now that the Liberal Democrats have 10 times more MPs than 50 years ago, does this mean that Grimond's 'new class' has indeed grown - only much more slowly than he was hoping for?
I suspect the part of the answer is that the other parties have managed to reinvent themselves in less class-bound terms.
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1 comment:

  1. Frank Little11 October, 2009 11:42

    That "press conference" featuring Jo Grimond, re-shown on BBC-Parliament over the weekend, was fascinating. Howard, in his introduction, made the point that the Liberal party did not make any electoral advance in 1959. On the other hand, it was clear to see how Grimond inspired the generation which advanced the party from the 1960s onwards.

    And aggressive conservative interrogation on TV did not start with Robin Day, as Charles Curran demonstrated.

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