Response to Cole and Brack

Abstract

The annual conference of the Liberal Party, as Duncan Brack will remember, used to be referred to officially not as the Federal Conference but as a ‘Joint Assembly’. Only constitutional enthusiasts and some of the Scots ever remember that this was because of the autonomous status of the Scottish and Welsh Liberal parties. When some people write about ‘social Liberals’, ‘economic Liberals’ and/or ‘classical Liberals’ they make it sound as if the Liberal Democrats are a ‘joint’ party in which these different traditions sit in uneasy coalition on opposite sides of the conference hall. Indeed, it is notable that this presumed division attracts slightly more attention than any division between former Liberals and former Social Democrats, with which it is by no means co-terminous. Duncan Brack spends some time seeking to prise apart the classical and social Liberal traditions within the Party, only to discover that they are inseparable. If classical liberalism cannot find a way of freeing people from the obstacles to liberty which arise from poverty, ill-health or lack of education, it ceases to be liberal; if ‘social’ liberalism loses sight of the corrupting and enfeebling dangers of state and centralised power, it ceases to be liberal. Freedom is the lifeblood of liberalism.KeywordsCivil LibertyLiberal PartyAutonomous StatusEducation SpendingEconomic LiberalThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.