The Liberal Party has two new council seats.

[MAZZINI]

National Liberalism not very liberal? You would have Roseberry, Chamberlain and Simon spinning in their graves! Just because you favour the social liberalism of the Liberal Party it doesn't mean there isn't another form of liberalism!

[ANGLO-STAFFS]

National Liberalism not very liberal? You would have Roseberry, Chamberlain and Simon spinning in their graves! Just because you favour the social liberalism of the Liberal Party it doesn't mean there isn't another form of liberalism!

Oh come on! Just because they have taken on the name of a party with an honourable history does not, by any stretch of the immagination, mean that they have the same credability!

[MAZZINI]

I think if you read their literature/website you would realise that they believe it is supporting and promoting that tradition. Shame people's prejudices/preconcieved ideas warp their sense of analysis.

[Plutonium]

The Liberal Party has two new council seats.

Cllr John Savage, who was elected as a Conservative councillor for both North Yorkshire County Council and Harrogate Borough Council, has joined the Liberal Party.

.

So in other words, the Liberals haven't won an election; somebody the voters elected in good faith for another party, has switched allegiance to them.

Democracy??

[Tom Wilde]

It happens. The trouble is an essential ambiguity throughout our electoral system: are electors voting for a party or for an individual? If they are electing an individual, then they are entrusting him or her to represent their interests and if the councillor decides in his or her infinite wisdom that the best way to do that is to change parties, then they should be able to do that.

If on the other hand the voters are electing a party, then they might well feel short changed. But in that case the party managers are the only people that count - the individual councillor's conscience should be left at home in a bottle on the shelf until they come home from the council meeting. Do we want that?

So what is it to be? Do we vote for a party or an individual?

[ANGLO-STAFFS]

So in other words, the Liberals haven't won an election; somebody the voters elected in good faith for another party, has switched allegiance to them.

Democracy??

On another section you have shown interest in the SDP! In its very early days it managed to get about 30 MPs without even getting a single vote.

It happens, it is part of the way politics works in this country!,

[Russet]

Nice to see them doing so well