If the left wants to rediscover their liberal roots, we should welcome them back!

06
11
07

If the left wants to rediscover their liberal roots, we should welcome them back!

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liberalism

Something potentially quite significant saw the light of day today. The launch of the "Liberal Conspiracy" website/blog seeks to provide a forum (network hub as they call it) for those in the "broad left" to coalesce and celebrate and promote their liberal similarities rather than their leftist sectarianism.

It is the sort of thing that I would have thought a few years ago would have fitted my political outlook like a glove. I worry slightly though, from their launch document, that they might well be more "American liberal" than "British liberal", so will watch with interest for now to see how it pans out.

As both my readers will know, I am absolutely and unshakably convinced that the ideas of what could then have been called the "liberal left" in the late nineteenth century were the solutions that were never implemented that would have created a more equitable world in which our current "state of welfare" would not have been needed. And that these solutions have been merely delayed thanks to the fragmenting of the "left" into liberal and socialist and the hijacking of British politics throughout at least the latter two thirds of the twentieth century by a ding dong battle between the protectionists of business interests and the protectionists of labour interests.

So, I'd like to be part of this conspiracy, if they will have me, and if I see that what they mean by liberalism can accommodate such old-fashioned radical liberalism as mine...

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Submitted by Tristan Mills (not verified) on November 6, 2007 - 10:30.

I share your worry about it meaning American Liberalism rather than British/European... Although Stumbling and Mumbling is more on the British Liberal side of things, so its not all statist interventionism with being nice to gays and blacks thrown in...

Submitted by The Poet Laura-eate (not verified) on November 6, 2007 - 14:47.

Much though I loathe/mock the dumbing down process in various ways (as all two of MY readers will know), the spaghetti of politics is one area where I for one do need everything idiot-proofed and parties/idioms turned into objective (if that's possible!) lists of pro's and cons, notwithstanding that many of the differences that used to exist between political parties are no more - in UK at least. However if I find this as a reasonably intelligent person, I don't think there's much hope of most of the rest of the electorate ever becoming politically active (even insofar as making it as far as the Polling Station in some instances!) if without the benefit of political history teaching and indepth modern political study, a simple means cannot be devised of illustrating who and what stands for who and what insofar as it relates to the electorate today. I think this has also given rise to the modern trend of single issue politics - people, even intelligent people - feel overwhelmed with choice/information overload and that they can only deal with one issue at a time if they have time in their busy lives at all.

Submitted by Jock on November 7, 2007 - 03:01.

...than understanding that, as remarked by W S Gilbert a century and more ago:

I often think it's comical--Fal, lal, la! Fal, lal, la!
How Nature always does contrive--Fal, lal, la, la!
That every boy and every gal
That's born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative!
Fal, lal, la! Fal, lal, la!
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative!
Fal, lal, la!