Talk:Social Democratic Party (UK, 1990)

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Have edited the first paragraph to reflect that David Owen's "continuing" SDP is not the same entity as the original SDP formed in 1981. The Liberal Democrats are the legal successor party to both that and the original Liberal Party, and that fact should be reflected in the article. Flagboy 11:37, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Move this article?

Should we move this article to SDP (UK, 1988)? Despite all the bad feeling along the way, this has turned into a much better article. The extra detail about the Independent SDP is particularly interesting. Mpntod 12:01, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

  • I think there are good arguments for restoring it to the old breakdown, i.e., the pre-1990 SDP that was a national party, and the post-1990 SDP that is a local grouplet. It would be better to avoid that issue, however, by having the party's history recounted in three articles: one for each phase of its history, i.e., 1981-1988, 1988-1990, and post-1990. I think that a consensus should be determined before further changes are made, however, because of the controversy about this article so far. As well, I plan to do a copyedit soon to ensure neutrality. Ground Zero | t 13:16, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Since no-one seemed to object to my proposal, I have created the third article, Social Democratic Party (UK, 1988)., covering the Owenite party. Ground Zero | t 06:46, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Copyedit

I have undertaken a full-scale copyedit of the article to:

  • try to make it more neutral,
  • bring it into the Wikipeida style (e.g., sub-heading, capitalisation)
  • improve (in my opinion) the writing style and grammar.

If you disagree with any of my edits, or think that you can do even better, please edit individual portions of the article instrad of reverting the whole lot. A complete reversion will restore grammatical errors and things that are not consistent with the Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Here are some of the more important edits that I have made and why:

  • The Road To Bootle > The road to Bootle The Manual of Style says that words in sub-heading should not be capitalised, except for the first word and proper nouns.
  • Secondly, they had in Dr David Owen the one thing the Liberal Democrats lacked (until the arrival of Paddy Ashdown) - a charismatic leader that looked & acted the part of a potential prime minister in waiting. > Secondly, David Owen was a charismatic leader who looked and acted the part of a potential prime minister. The Liberal Democrats lacked a leader of Owen's stature until the arrival of Paddy Ashdown. This was an awkard sentence for a number of reasons:
    • "&" is not used in formal writing - use "and".
    • people are normally referred to as "who" instead of "that"
    • "potential prime minister in waiting" is redundant. Did he have the potential to be prime minister, or only the potential to be prime minister-in-waiting?
    • I have broken up the sentence to make it easier to follow by moving the LibDem stuff into a separate sentence.
    • this was the third time in the article that David Owen's name is linked. The Style Manual discourages repeated linking.
    • "the one thing the Liberal Democrats lacked" -- The one thing? I thought they also lacked the financial support of a wealthy supermarket magnate.
  • call it a day > dissolve the party "Call it a day" is very colloquial for an encyclopedia, and may not be understand by a non-native speaker of English. I have changed this to "dissolve the party" to reflect the more formal style of an encycolpedia. If this is not the correct characterisation of what they voted to do, please change it to the correct description.
  • ironically led by the very Jack Holmes > led by Jack Holmes Let's let the readers decide if there is irony here. there is no need to tell them what to think about this. "the very" is unnecessary.
  • The Neath result proved that a greatly reduced SDP could continue to live & fight to another day. > The Neath result proved that a greatly reduced SDP could continue to be a viable party without David Owen. This is pretty florid language. I think that the replacement is clearer, and gets to the real point in a less dramatic way.
  • There has been a recent upturn in their fortunes with the announcement that Councillor Christine Allerston is the new Mayor of Bridlington for 2005/2006. > Councillor Christine Allerston is the new Mayor of Bridlington for 2005/2006. The old version sounds like political boosterism. The new version conveys the same information to the reader without intereting it for her or him.
  • The party also still has councillors > The party has councillors "also still" was awkward and unnecessary wording.
  • The "Newts" seem set to remain a part of British politics for some time yet (deleted) Wikipedia is not a crystal ball.
  • ...but like many minor British parties they are unlikely to contest Parliamentary elections when what resources they possess are more likely to yield results at local council level. > The SDP, like many minor British parties, is likely to focus its resources at local council level were they are more likely to win seats than in Parliamentary elections. I re-wrote this sentence for clarity and simplicity while retaining the key information.

And if anyone is interested in reading about a Canadian version of two parties merging into three parties, see the Progressive Canadian Party article. Ground Zero | t 17:07, 6 December 2005 (UTC) Ground Zero | t 16:57, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Election box metadata

This article contains some sub-pages that hold metadata about this subject. This metadata is used by the Election box templates to display the color of the party and its name in Election candidate and results tables.

These links provide easy access to this meta data:


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