Talk:Liberalism in the United Kingdom

Blimey. Who would have guessed British Liberals could be so half-arsed?

Looks like whoever started this got tired and stopped — years ago, but no one picked up the thread or even started a discussion about it. ~ Bighairything (talk) 16:52, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Liberalism, or Liberal Party?

This currently reads like a summary of Liberal Party/Liberal Democrat support. The title of the page, I feel, suggests that the scope of its content will be rather broader. 95.149.121.239 (talk) 20:17, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Sir-Henry-Campbell-Bannerman.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. Community Tech bot (talk) 02:58, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

List of liberal PMs

Instead of reverting it again I suggest we talk it out here... As I put on the edit summary restricting the list of PMs to just the liberal party simply because their name says "Liberal" is very subjective and give a false impression of UK liberalism to the reader. There are a number of different schools of which the liberal party itself followed two different ones during its existence. This list gives no benefit to a reader unless it includes all liberal PMs and the schools of liberalism they followed. The conservatives party are economically liberal and have been since 1979 and Thatcher's reforms. ThinkingTwice ^{contribs | talk} 11:23, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

I believe we should remove the list. There are several prime ministers before the formation of the Liberal Party who can be considered liberal, such as the Peelite prime ministers Robert Peel and Lord Aberdeen. Moreover, whether Theresa May can be considered a liberal conservative or neoliberal is extremely debatable due to her support for Brexit. If you can find a source specifically listing every British prime minister who had economically policies, then by all means we can keep the list. Otherwise it's best for us to remove it. AlbanGeller (talk) 13:18, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm happy to agree to remove the list of PMs, otherwise if we keep adding to it, it'll just duplicate the list of all UK PMs excluding Labour and early Tories. However the "list of Liberal leaders" has to be updated to included the Liberal Unionist Party which was a breakaway party from the Liberal Party in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century and the Conservatives party leaders since 1979 as the party platform is economically liberal. Whatever people think of Theresa May (who did not support Brexit, but chose to follow the people's vote), she is still leading a party whose policies are neoliberal in foundation and closer to the tenets of classical liberalism than the Lib Dems social liberalism. The split I did on the section showing the leaders by school gives the reader much more relevant information than just a list of names, as "liberalism" is a very wide church and covers many conflicting ideas. The list as it is, looks like they may all believe in the same thing and they really didn't. ThinkingTwice ^{contribs | talk} 14:10, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

As we are in agreement and nobody else has interjected in the last 3 days, I have removed the table of liberal party governments. Also as nobody has expressed an opinion on the liberal leaders I've corrected it to reflect a better understanding to readers that liberalism in the UK does not just reflect the social liberalism of the Lib Dems. ThinkingTwice ^{contribs | talk} 12:28, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I find it very hard to believe that anyone would see Thatcher or May as "liberal leaders" in any sense understood by most people in the UK. The article isn't about "economic liberalism" or about "classical liberalism", but about "liberalism". We shouldn't try to force words to mean other than what they are generally used to mean. DuncanHill (talk) 12:33, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

But they are, its just a different school of liberalism. Its not to "force words", its the job of an encyclopedia to tell the truth and correct any misunderstanding people may have. As you say, the article is about "liberalism" which means it has to include "economic liberalism" and "classical liberalism", not just "social liberalism" which (as you have done yourself) is often incorrectly shortened to just liberalism. Social liberalism is just one school, classical liberalism, Economic liberalism and neoliberalism are equally others, you can not talk about liberalism within the UK without talking about all schools. This is why I was saying we need to include the school next to the party/leaders otherwise people will assume they all believe in the same thing but liberalism is a wide church and has broken into multiple schools with conflicting ideas. "Social liberals" have no more right to call themsleves liberal than any other school. In fact economic liberalism and Thatcherism are arguably closer to the true liberal ideals of laissez-faire free markets, low taxation, small government, self-help and freedom of choice found within what is now termed "classical liberalism" but until the early twentieth century was just called "liberalism", then the more authoritarian pro big government style of "social liberalism". ThinkingTwice ^{contribs | talk} 14:24, 18 June 2018 (UTC)