Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Nick Clegg's The Liberal Moment: Chapter 3

Time for the third instalment of my desultory progress through Nick Clegg's Demos pamphlet The Liberal Moment.

Chapter 3 turns out to be the slightest of the three so far, with Nick concerned only to show that significant shifts in the political landscape can take place.

He cites 1906 and 1997 as examples, presumably because they fit well with his thesis that there is such a thing as progressivism and Labour and Liberals have jointly or separately represented it at various times.

But what about 1945 and 1979? How progressive was Jim Callaghan's Labour Party in 1979? And what about Mrs Thatcher? You can hardly call her a progressive in Nick's terms, yet her ideas still shape British society 20 years after she left power.

See also:
And you can download the whole pamphlet from Nick Clegg's website.

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