Scottish Liberal Research Articles

General Assembly of the Church of Scotland

The General Assembly of the Church met in a ‘blended’ form, based at the Assembly Hall, from 22 May to 27 May. The Moderator on this occasion was an elder, rather than a minister, but with the distinction of being Lord Wallace of Tankerness PC QC FRSE, a Liberal Democrat life peer since 2007, who served as the Deputy First Minister of Scotland from 1999 to 2005. He was formerly Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats from 1992 to 2005 and of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords from 2013 to 2016. He also served as a Member of Parliament for Orkney and Shetland from 1983 to 2001 and a Member of the Scottish Parliament for Orkney from 1999 to 2007. He was Advocate General for Scotland in the Westminster Government from 2010 to 2015.

A Party Built on Bigotry Alone? The Scottish Board of Dissenters and Edinburgh Liberalism, 1834–56

By assessing the Central Board of Dissenters, arguably the most influential liberal-voluntary group of the mid-nineteenth century and the political wing of Scottish dissent, this article questions whether the Liberal party in Edinburgh was indeed built on ‘bigotry alone’, and asks whether the groups that would later form the backbone of Scottish Liberalism until the Great War were, as John Brown claimed, the enemies of all oppressions and monopolies, or simply the products of sectarian strife. The Central Board of Dissenters acted as the conduit for ecclesiastical and political organisation for Edinburgh's radical voluntaries during the bitter conflict of the pre-Disruption period, and utilised this organisational strength after 1843 to create a pan-dissenting alliance based on the anti-Maynooth campaign. Despite their foundations in the intra-Presbyterian strife of Victorian Scotland, the electoral successes of this period created a base both in Edinburgh and across Scotland for a Liberal party, once it threw off the ideological shackles of these denominational struggles, which would dominate Scottish politics until the Great War.

2015 and all that

The UK General Election of 2015, in which the Scottish National Party won 56 of the 59 seats, is likely to be a landmark in Scottish history. Moreover, for the first time since 1886, the victor in the predominant country in the Union – the Conservative Party in England – seemed to gain electoral victory in part by hostility to one of the partners of the Union. The article discusses the origins of this electoral tsunami. The immediate origin of the SNP landslide commenced with the disillusion with Scottish Liberalism, but its main victim was the Scottish Labour Party, seemingly fatally damaged by its alliance with the Conservatives during the campaign for a No vote in the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence. But whoever lost the election of 2015, it was won by Nicola Sturgeon, setting an example of civil debate untarnished by Westminster politics. Analogies with the politics of Ireland in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century cast helpful light on the present situation.

The squeezed middle? The Liberal Democrats in Wales and Scotland: A post-coalition reassessment

In the wake of the repeated electoral losses suffered by the Scottish and Welsh Liberal Democrats in 2011 and 2012, it is perhaps unsurprising that recent analysis has focused on the ‘toxic impact of the federal party's coalition with the Conservative party’ on the devolved state parties electoral fortunes. Certainly this significant electoral collapse, alongside the hostility to both parties recorded in the 2011 Scottish and Welsh electoral surveys, could be said to lend credence to such a research focus. However, this article argues that the real potency of the Westminster coalition has resulted from it exacerbating and exposing weaknesses that have long blighted the Liberal Democrats in Scotland and Wales. Indeed, by adopting an approach that places the Scottish and Welsh Liberal Democrats' current woes within a historical context, this article will contend that such frailties highlight structural weaknesses at the very heart of the Liberal Democrats federally.

Over 16 500 NHS staff in Scotland were signed off with mental health problems in past two years

Over 16 500 NHS staff in Scotland have been signed off because of mental health problems in the past two years, show figures obtained by the Scottish Liberal Democrats under a freedom of information request. In 2013-14, 788 Scottish NHS staff …

The Conundrum of multi-level politics in the UK after devolution: the case of the Scottish Liberal Democrats in the 2011 Scottish Parliament election

As early as the 2001 general election The Scotsman underlined the dilemma facing the Liberal Democrats post devolution, as the party seemed to be torn between the two levels of governance in Edinburgh and London. Indeed, whereas the Liberal Democrats had been Labour’s partner in government in Scotland since 1999, at Westminster, they were in opposition, and in the British general election campaign, the two parties were rivals in the race for power. Ten years later, the Scottish Liberal Democrats found themselves in the position of contesting the fourth Scottish Parliament election as an opposition party at Holyrood, while being identified with the Conservative party as their coalition partner in government in London since May 2010. How did they come to terms with campaigning in the 2011 Scottish Parliament as a party which had been sitting on the opposition benches in Edinburgh for the past four years, while bearing the brunt of the attacks on the UK coalition government in Scotland? This article will first focus on the specific circumstances which made the campaign particularly difficult to handle for the Scottish Liberal Democrats, before looking into the party’s disastrous election results. Finally it will attempt to highlight the predicament facing the party in Scotland as a result of the multi-level nature of the British political system after devolution.

PARE0019 National rheumatoid arthritis society scottish campaigns network

BackgroundHealth is a devolved matter so Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) services are configured differently in Scotland to other parts of the UK. As the voice for people with RA, the National...

The Scottish coalition agreement

The first Scottish parliamentary elections in May 1999 were followed by a landmark coalition agreement between the Scottish Labour Party and the Scottish Liberal Democrats. The author, Philip Goldenberg, was involved in the drafting of wording on which Part III of the agreement was based and here analyses the significance of the Partnership Executive. Article by Philip Goldenberg (Partner in City Solicitors S.J. Berwin & Co, specialising in company law). Published in Amicus Curiae - Journal of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and its Society for Advanced Legal Studies. The Journal is produced by the Society for Advanced Legal Studies at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London.

The Radical Thread - Liberalism and the rise of Labour in Scotland 1886 - 1924

Preamble This paper is a revised version of a lecture delivered to the Liberal Democrat History Meeting at the Scottish Liberal Democrat Conference in 2009. It was the subject of a report in the Journal of Liberal History (Winter 2009-2010), pp. 32-38. See also Catriona M.M. Macdonald, The Radical Thread: Political Change in Scotland, Paisley 1885-1924 (John Donald, 2000). Contemporary resonances are seductive when reflecting on the historic and recent past of the Liberal Party in Britain and...

The Reinvention of Scottish Liberal Education: Secondary Schooling, 1900–39

Scottish secondary education was radically extended in size and social reach in the first four decades of the twentieth century, bringing significant new opportunities in secondary schooling to girls, to children of the lower-middle and upper-working classes, and to Catholics. Most of the new secondary schools were based on those parish schools that had in the nineteenth century sent a few boys directly to university, and so this new secondary sector was a modernising of the mythological tradition of the lad o' pairts. The main reason it succeeded was that it sought to extend to new social groups the benefits of the version of liberal education that had come to be regarded as the foundation of professional careers. Thus the reforms also had the effect of transferring to the senior years of the secondary schools the old undergraduate curriculum that had been replaced by more specialist university courses in the late-nineteenth century. The paper offers an evidence-based critique not only of that strand of pessimism which has claimed that Scottish education was stagnant between the wars, but also of George Davie's influential view that the tradition of a broad general education was lost.

Community Politics? Grassroots Liberal Democrats and the 2003 Scottish Parliament Elections

The Liberal Democrats have become synonymous with the idea of ‘community politics’. This means being active in communities between elections in order to build a profile from which the party benefits at subsequent elections. This article examines the constituency organisation of the Scottish Liberal Democrats in order to ask how deserved the reputation for ‘community politics’ is in the Scottish context. It assesses how extensive the party organisation is, and how active that organisation is both between and during election campaigns. The first section of the article assesses the importance of local parties. The second section examines the extent of Scottish Liberal Democrat membership and societal penetration. The third and fourth sections address levels of activity between and during elections. The article concludes with a short assessment of the implications for the party.

Liberalisms and the limits of knowledge and freedom: On the epistemological and social bases of negative liberty

This article sets out to show that it is more precise to speak of different liberal traditions than it is to speak of liberalism in general. The argument is pursued by showing how contrary to French liberalism, which has a strong republican element, and in contrast with English and Scottish liberalism, which reserve an important place for political economy, there is also a central European liberalism with a marked philosophical dimension. This particular form of liberalism is analysed by examining the writings of Kant, Simmel and Freud. It is stated at the outset that critiques of liberalism often fail to appreciate the richness and diversity of liberal thinking, and that this depth must be borne in mind in any effective critique. It is explained that there are indeed grounds to critique liberal thought and practice, but that these grounds are obscured by lumping distinct and heterogeneous traditions together as if they all suffered from the same defects.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats

As the junior members of the two Scottish coalition or partnership governments (1999–2003 and 2003–7), the Liberal Democrats have had a major impact on post‐devolution public policy in Scotland. Contrary to expectations, their participation as junior partners in a coalition government has enhanced rather than damaged their electoral prospects. The party's success in coalition reflects the electoral and policy compatibilities between them and Labour, the availability of increased public spending to fund their demands, their use of specific policy agreements and effective election campaign tactics. Under their new leader, Nicol Stephen, they have sought greater distance from Labour and located themselves between Labour and the Scottish Nationalist Party. Looking forward to the 2007 election, the declining Labour vote and probable SNP gains mean that the Liberal Democrats are likely this time to have a choice between joining a Labour‐led or forming a non‐Labour coalition.

Gray’s Elegy for Progress

Gray’s alternative to liberalism is unworkable in practice and implausible in theory. The essay distinguishes Socratic, Durkheimian and Scottish Enlightenment liberalism, arguing that Gray’s critique of liberalism as historically contingent is ineffective against the Socratic version of liberalism. Whereas the liberalism of Durkheim and Adam Smith is perhaps dependent on historical circumstances, Socratic liberalism simply upholds an iconoclastic ideal of individualism and gauges societies’ progress by their proximity to this ideal. Thus there is no reason to endorse Gray’s view that history has refuted the liberal view of progress. Gray takes value‐pluralism to subvert the liberal aspiration to universal values, and though he admits there are universal human evils, he argues that regimes which shield their citizens against these may be highly illiberal. But liberal societies are much better at protecting their citizens against the generic evils of poverty and inequality of status than are modern or historical authoritarian societies. Gray’s espousal of modus vivendi fails to protect cultural diversity. In conclusion, the essay affirms, against the myths of diversity, spirituality and democracy which pervade modern liberal societies, its faith in an ideal of progress based on technocratic liberal capitalism.

‘A Nationalist in the Churchillian Sense’: John MacCormick, the Paisley By‐Election of 18 February 1948, Home Rule, and the Crisis in Scottish Liberalism

‘A Nationalist in the Churchillian Sense’: John MacCormick, the Paisley By‐Election of 18 February 1948, Home Rule, and the Crisis in Scottish Liberalism

Social and Material Deprivation among Unemployed Youth in Northern Europe

This article examines deprivation among unemployed young people. It draws on a comparative survey of 8,654 young unemployed in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Scotland. In spite of an increased knowledge of the relationship between unemployment and poverty,our understanding of deprivation among young unemployed people remains inadequate. How do young people deal with unemployment? Are transitional factors the only explanation for the prevalence of deprivation or should we also consider intergenerational factors? The six countries represent two different welfare strategies, the Nordic universalistic model and the Scottish liberal/ minimalist approaches. The research findings showed diverging tendencies within the Nordic countries. Converging trends between the different systems could also be found, as family support plays the main role in preventing deprivation in all of the countries.

BOOK REVIEW: John F. McCaffrey.SCOTLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Basingstoke: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.

The 1990s was a fruitful decade for research on nineteenth-century Scottish history and John McCaffrey's short volume, which incorporates much of the recent material, provides a welcome overview of the period. The author took on a daunting remit to produce the book--part of Macmillan's series "British History in Perspective"--condensing the complex and sometimes convoluted history of Scotland into five comprehensive chapters. Moreover, although the title specifies the nineteenth century, the narrative extends to 1914. Understandably, McCaffrey had to be selective in his approach, and focuses overwhelmingly on political and administrative developments. Teachers of modern Scottish history are well aware that this can be a notoriously unfriendly area for students, largely because of the seemingly arcane debates that surrounded issues such as religion and the reform ethos. However, McCaffrey has a grasp of the intricacies of the nineteenth-century political process, which he uses to illuminate the continuities and changes that underpinned Scottish society at this time. Anyone seeking a concise explanation of the significance of the 1843 Disruption of the Church of Scotland, or an assessment of the multi-faceted qualities of late-Victorian Scottish liberalism, should start by looking here.

Third Party Politics in a Four Party System: The Liberal Democrats in Scotland

The Scottish Liberal Democrats are the heirs of the old Scottish Liberal Party and enjoy a tradition of independence within the Liberal organisation that goes back to the party's formation by the Scottish Liberal Federation in 1946. Over the last half century the party's fortunes have fluctuated in Scotland, as across Britain generally, but seldom come to the attention of academic observers. The literature on political parties in Scotland is notoriously thin and thinnest in relation to the Liberals and Liberal Democrats. However, the absence of literature belies the fact that the Scottish dimension to the Liberal Democrats has a number of important facets which have made Scottish Liberalism central to the development of third party politics in the UK since last century. In recent years, for example, Scotland has provided around one third of Liberal Democrat MPs in the House of Commons, without whom the party would lack political credibility at Westminster. The Scottish Liberal Party was also responsible for producing two prominent Liberal leaders in Jo Grimond and David Steel. In addition, the Scottish Liberal Democrats (SLD) play an important role within the federal organisation of the Liberal Democrats, a relationship subject to tensions between the two party organisations which is indicative of the anomalies of the party's federal structure. The Scottish and federal dimensions of the Liberal Democrats have been neglected areas of research in spite of the fact that the party is the only

The Land Issue and the Future of Scottish Liberalism in 1914

This article examines the state of the Scottish Liberal Party in 1914 through the lens of its attitude to land reform, in particular Lloyd George's Land Campaign of 1912-14. It concludes that whilst the Scottish form of the Land Campaign was not as radical in some ways as its English counterpart, it was an effective way of holding Scottish Liberals together and persuading the whole party to gradually accept more social reform.

John Nichol, American Literature, and Scottish Liberalism

The first history of American literature by a British author, John Nichol's American Literature, An Historical Sketch, 1620–1880, was published in Edinburgh in 1882. In several ways the publication was an unlikely event. By 1882 few American scholars had devoted themselves to the study of American literary history. For a British one to do so at that date must have struck most of his contemporaries as scarcely comprehensible. In 1866 Henry Yates Thompson of Liverpool had offered to endow a lectureship at Cambridge in the ‘History, Literature, and Institutions of the United States’—the lecturer to be appointed by the President and Fellows of Harvard. But for a combination of ecclesiastical, political, and academic reasons the offer was rejected as a dangerous novelty. Nothing had happened to make the ‘dangerous novelty’ of 1866 a respectable subject of academic concern in 1882.