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Originally Posted by Dilke
Doing well – not if you follow the logic of the website; the site claims the Liberal Democrats appeared from nowhere and have nothing to do with the Liberal Party, so the Liberal Party has lost all its Cornish Peers, MPs, and councillors bar two. Meanwhile a party that appeared as if by magic in 1988 has won all the parliamentary seats in Cornwall!
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The merger was twenty years ago. When I said "doing well", I meant now, at the moment, and plainly I meant "doing well for a small party with no money and virtually no media coverage". The trouble with you LibDems is that you are stuck in the past! Are you going to keep on beating the Liberal Party up for being the smaller of the two parties to emerge from the events of 1998/9, or can we move on to more important matters?
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Originally Posted by Dilke
The Liberal Party is not a simple successor to the Whigs, it is the result of a merger of Whigs, Radicals and Peelites,
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Yes, that's right.
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Originally Posted by Dilke
I could go on, but what’s the point.
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There isn't any. As I've already explained in my last post, I support the Liberals because they have better policies than the LibDems,
not because I somehow feel that they represent a more historically authentic incarnation of the Liberal tradition! Maybe there are people in the Liberal Party who do feel that... if so why don't you go and find one and then have that argument with him/her rather than with me? You are barking up the wrong tree.
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Originally Posted by Dilke
What’s my beef, by using the name ‘Liberal Party’ the con Libs are benefiting from the work of others and showing their contempt for democracy.
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That's a bizarre assertion. Care to try to justify it, or are we just meant to engage in mindless mud-slinging?
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Originally Posted by Dilke
Take the Bideford councillors less than six months after being elected as Lib Dems, they come and join the con Libs, because of a great matter of liberal principle, no because one of the Lib Dem councillors used to talk dirty down a phone line to some sad old gits, and their pastor told them to leave the ‘sinful Lib Dems’. (They clearly are unaware of Steve Radford’s views on legalising and regulating prostitution. I must enlighten them)
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Elected councillors have defected in both directions. I believe a few years back some city councillors in Liverpool went from the Liberal Party to the LibDems not long after being elected. I don't think they were turned away. These things happen, annoying though they can sometimes be. More recently, of course, most defections have been from the LibDems to the Liberal Party rather than vice versa, but I think there are reasons for that - most LibDem councillors are more principled than your party's leadership.
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Originally Posted by Dilke
You Tom want an anti EU, yet moderate political party, however the con Libs were not formed as an anti EU liberal party, they fell out of love with the EU over a number of years. The commitment to leave the EU was a close run thing at Assembly, and if Radford is eclipsed as leader, it could all change back very quickly.
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I doubt that. And why on earth should I care whether or not the Liberals were a pro or anti EU party back in 1988 or 89? It is their current stance that appeals to me.