Talk:Social Democratic Party (UK)

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[edit] Rump party/ies

I have edited the first 2 paragraphs to reflect the fact that Owen's rump SDP that existed between 1988 and 1990 was not, legally, the continuation of the original "Gang of Four" SDP, of which the Liberal Democrats are the legal successor party. Arguably, the two SDPs should have separate articles, but I can live with text that makes clear the legal line of continuation after the merger. Flagboy 11:51, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes you are quite right and I support your change. The important revision to this article was to remove entirely the story of the post 1990 "SDP" and place it as a separate article. This I did yesterday and the "new" SDPers can do what they like with it! Social Democratic Party (UK, 1990). There is still some work to do on this article but at least we can now work on something we know about (broadly the SDP and its history prior to the formation of the LibDems!) PaddyBriggs 13:03, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Paddy Briggs above post reveals that the "edits" done are little more than vandalism by Liberal Democrats to suit their own political agenda (if they are so interested in clarity, how strange that the "post 1990" page has no link to it from this one & is so riddled with diminuations as to leave little doubt that it has little to do with proffering facts & more to do with proffering opinions, but then one can see from such language as "rump" that leaving the readers to make up their own minds was not the intent. The continuing Liberal Party page I understand suffers from the same attritions.

I have restored the originals (with some minor corrections) - if you don't like it, tough. The Wikipedia is not for pushing your own political agendas or as a substitution for a lack of interest in your personal blog pages.

Mark_Boyle 20:49, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

What a very strange post by Mark Boyle! Just for the record, Mr Boyle:

  • I have no political agenda
  • I am not a Liberal Democrat
  • My personal "blog" pages do not allow others to write on them!
  • My website is none of your business and irrelevent to Wikipedia
  • Personal abuse is not consistent with the ethos of Wikipedia, and you really are being very silly!

PaddyBriggs 08:51, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Mark, I have left a note on your talk page indicating what I think as a disinterested observer. As a Canadian, I have no affiliation with any version of the SDP, the S&LDP, the Liberals or the Monster Raving Loony Party. My interest is in helping to ensure that Wikipedia articles reflect a neutral point of view. I think that the two articles on the pre-1990 and post-1990 SDP are relatively well-balanced, and that splitting the party's histroy into these two periods is an appropriate way of handling things. I agree on the word "rump", and will change it. If you belive there to be other NPOV language in the article, then post it here for discussion. Further wholesale reversions will lead to the article being protected and/or you being blocked as a last resort. Let's not let it come to that. Ground Zero | t 20:01, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Let's be clear about this, whatever Briggs' edits had in mind, balance was never part of the agenda from the outset.

And I quote from Briggs' first "edit" (16.10 22nd November)

"More realistically, however, they are probably best seen as maintaining the tradition for eccentricity which has always been part of the British political scene - but with no chance whatsoever of ever being a serious national political force."

Come on Ground Zero, are you really trying to suggest that this is NOT someone with a bit of an axe to grind? As such, what are we to make of his other edits to date?

As you said yourself, replacing one POV for another POV is a rather strange way of applying balance - and how strange that our "unbiased" Briggs should not only return to do further vandalism a mere 20 minutes after you had changed his previous edit (the same day), but went so far the second time around as to remove a source link confirming my claims of current SDP council representation. Rather strange behaviour from someone claiming they were wishing to make the article NPOV!

Furthermore, having failed to get away with putting in one rather jaundiced viewpoint (implying that the current SDP being "eccentrics"), he then decides instead to proffer another "On the other hand most political commentators would argue that the centre ground of British politics is already too crowded for a re-launched SDP to be able credibly to find room for national success." - as you correctly pointed out, most would be unaware that the SDP still does exist (and for that matter the Liberals, despite their number of council seats).

Add this to phrases such as "reality check" and the co-opting in of a current Liberal Democrat activist and former Parliamentary candidate to mysteriously "back up" his line within minutes of each other's postings (Mpntod being one Martin Tod) are hardly in line with NOV, no matter how much Briggs may protest this is his intentions.

That the continuing SDP is constantly referred to as "continuing" with inverted commas (inverted commas being little more than another way of saying 'so-called') is another giveaway, look at any Social And Liberal Democrat/Liberal Democrat literature of the period for elaboration. Sorry Ground Zero, but whatever else this may seem, this looks suspiciously like politically motivated vandalism.

As for the "legal" side as to which is/was the 'successor' of the SDP, [ie. "However, legally speaking the Liberal Democrats are the successor party to both the SDP (as existed between 1981 and 1988) and the Liberal Party)] this in particular is utter nonsense. There was no registration of political parties at the time of the 1988 merger vote - this has only been in effect since the mid 1990s in the UK - and as such whilst the vote was enough to legally allow what assets the party's national organisation had to be handed over to the new combined party, they could not stop the party's own local branches (where the active party lay) from deciding whether to join the new party or continue with those wishing to remain as either Social Democrats or Liberals (hence the fiasco in some areas like parts of Cornwall where the party had members from those that had subscribed at each party's national HQ, but no actual branch for fighting any elections with!).

Both Robert McLellan and David Steel consulted with lawyers when Owen & Meadowcroft made it clear they were carrying on, and were told that as both parties were federations there was nothing to stop those that chose to continue as SDP or Liberal Party from doing so under the same names as before. Anyone doubting this need look no further than the one rather obvious giveaway as to just how weak the claims are that the current Liberal Democrats are in any way the "legal" successors of the SDP - that is they were unable to stop Meadowcroft, Owen, et al from using the party logos that existed before.

I am more than a touch cross about this as I have done work for several other minor party pages (Official Monster Raving Loony Party, National Front, BNP, Liberal Party, Commander Bill Boaks, etc) but this is the only one that seems to be subject to a sustained attack, although I am rather amused at Briggs' unsustainable claims that I did my rewrites as a "rallying call to other SDP members" - a fine example of judging others by one's own standards. I wrote this to correct a number of gaps in the knowledge that existed as to post-Bootle events, simple as that.

I did have other information I was going to post up today, but I wonder whether to bother if you are going to allow clear vandalism by politicos for their own ends?

Mark_Boyle 18:59, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Mark Boyle I am sorry that you are continuing your personal attacks on me. Like Ground Zero I am a disinterested observer and my only motivation is to ensure that these articles are as accurate as possible. I am not a "politico", I do not support the Lib Dems or any other Party, and my changes have certainly not been "vandalism". What is now in place seems fair and balanced and I hope that now you have got your splenetic bile out of your system you will accept them. PaddyBriggs 07:22, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Erm if the 1988 group were a continuation then what was different in 1990? Timrollpickering 20:04, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I have no association with Paddy Briggs. I did do some fact checking though - with every change sourced (since I knew that, rightly, my edits would have more scrutiny) - pointing out that the SDP came fifth, not fourth at the Neath by-election (no apologies for that), pointing out that the Catterick councillors were district councillors, not county councillors, and that only one of them was still in place, and pointing out the factual differences between the current state of the post-1990 SDP and the Liberal Party. Despite the factual sourcing for each of these, the reversion was decidedly not NPOV. Obvious examples were "very strong fifth" (5.3% of the vote is not 'very strong' by any political definition that I know of), "North Yorkshire County Council" (check the results - this never happened - it was a district council election - and one of the two people cited is no longer an SDP councillor), "thumping majority" (neutral language?), "like the Liberal Party" (the Electoral Commission report makes it crystal clear that the SDP is operating on a much smaller scale than the Liberal Party). In terms of the location of the 'post-1990 SDP' I'm pretty agnostic - just so long as the relative scale of the post-1990 SDP and the Lib Dems is clear and accurately portrayed for people who are not knowledgeable about UK politics. If the Lib Dems had a paragraph for every town, parish, district and county council group, the entry would be several megabytes long. There are more councillors nationally for the "Neath Port Talbot Ratepayers Association" (8) than there are for the post-1990 SDP (7). Mpntod 10:58, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Mark, I am not suggesting that Paddy Briggs' edits were entirely NPOV. My first interaction with him was when I began making his edits neutral. I take him at his word that he is not a LibDem agent trying to undermine the SDP. Frankly, I don't think that the LibDems have that much to be worried about. The SDP is not that much of a threat yet. I think that his edits did includde too much editorialising, but he has accepted, by in large, my NPOV edits to what he has written.

Again, I think that we have to agree that the best way to make a neutral article is to edit out what is non-neutral, rather than to revert others edits wholesale. That kind of reversion just leads to revert wars, which are a big waste of time.

I think that the point that you raise about what is the "legal successor" to the SDP is an interesting one and worth pursuing. If you can provide an outside source for what the claim that you are making about party registration rules, the parties being federations, etc., then I htink a change to the current wording would be appropriate. Indeed, the continuing (and frankly, surprising) existence of the Meadowcroft Liberals should give us all reason to consider what you are saying. Let's work together to make this and the Social Democratic Party (UK, 1990) article better. I will try to moderate, given that there is an election going on in Canada right now that is taking up a fair bit of my time. Ground Zero | t 22:54, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you Ground Zero on trying to keep the article as neutral as possible (pity subsequent postings from others have demonstrated their desire for the converse is rather evident...). On the topic of the "legal" side, basically all party branches for the old Liberal Party and SDP were affiliated to the national party (the Conservatives are run largely on the same lines) were run as a confederacy affiliating to the national based party (this is down to the nature of how the first two national parties in the UK were formed in the 19th Century). They were far more free to decide what to do at a local level that their modern day equivelents where there is a lot more centralised authority at party HQ. Right until the 1960s, this resulted in such peculiarities as joint Liberal-Conservative candidates at election times if local branches felt local circumstances merited it (one famous example being future Tory Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine) - hard to see that happen nowadays!

This also led to a lot of nerves amongst the Tories in the 1970s when there was a real danger of some local Conservative branches with a large number in the Monday Club defecting over to the National Front - but that, as they say, is another story. Basically, if they had, the national Conservative party would have been powerless to stop them taking whatever branch assets they had with them.

Mark_Boyle 01:20, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] SDP MPs

from Labour :

From Conservative

[edit] April 13 2005 edit

This article needed a thorough clean-up to make it more readable and encyclopedic. I have also removed some passages that were unredeemably POV. If I have made any errors, please correct them. Ground Zero 19:21, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Categorisation

I've added a UK Social Democratic Party (SDP) politicians category. Any help populating it would be much appreciated. Mpntod 14:04, May 8, 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:



[edit] Origins

The present text contains a reference to Eddie Milne (MP for Blyth) having been the victim of a Militant conspiracy or some high-level dispute over the revelation of sharp practice. That is hardly true. He was deselected by the local party after a general (and very local) falling-out and Ivor Richard was selected in his place. Ivor Richard later became UK ambassador to the UN, an EU Commissioner and later still became Labour leader in the Lords - he was certainly no Trot!.

For those interested in the by-ways of history, Eddie Milne sought to establish an alternative Labour Party in Blyth. He had some initial success and his supporters captured a third of the seats on the local Council. But, it all came to nothing. One problem being that Milne never sought to extend his activities outside of Blyth. As far as I am aware, Milne declined to have anything to do with the SDP post 1981.

BScar23625 19:43, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely correct. Eddie Milne was actually a left-winger, and fell out with the right-wing Labour establishment in the north-east over corruption. His voters appear to have gone over to the SDP but not him, and he has no great relevance in the history of the SDP. David | Talk 19:27, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dick Taverne

The main article says that he lost his seat (Lincoln) in February 1974. In fact, he held it at that election and lost it to Margaret Jackson (now Rt Hon Margaret Beckett MP) in the October 1974 election. At least that's what your article on her says (and it's right, trust me!)

Mike Killingworth

Have changed this, having noticed Taverne's defeat when the BBC Parliament channel reran the Oct 1974 election night coverage. That programme is also full of speculation that the moderate wing of the Labour Party was on the verge of breaking away - does anyone know much about the background to the divisions in Labour in the 1970s to enhance this? At the moment it reads as though it was all a problem in local parties. Timrollpickering 20:50, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Split in centre-left"

The "split in the centre-left" concept mentioned under Effects is POV. It is based on the theory that if the Labour and the Alliance had fought as one grouping, most people who voted for one or the other would have voted for the unified party. This cannot be assumed, and I understand that there is opinion poll evidence from the time that suggests it is not true (i.e. that if the Alliance had not existed, then its vote would have been roughly evenly distributed between the other two parties]. I have amended the text accordingly to mark the phrase as opinion rather than fact; see also my amendments to Margaret Thatcher article on similar lines. Flagboy 15:41, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Glasgow Central?

Is the Social Democratic Party in thisGlasgow Central by-election the same as the SDP of this article?

doktorb | words 20:16, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Probably not as it predates the formation of the party. At the time a candidate could use whatever label they liked and there was a strong concept of "social democracy" floating about. (The Young Liberal wasn't an official candidate either - rather a party member who disagreed with the party not running one and learnt the hard way why that was.)
Is it me or is the turnout in that election pathetic? Just what % was it? Timrollpickering 22:00, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
The turnout was 42.8%.[1] It was a different SDP, which later opposed the SDP covered in this article. On the 1982 Glasgow Hillhead by-election: "Roy Harold Jenkins stood for the SDP, founded by Donald Kean in Manchester in July 1979. He had changed his name by deed poll from Douglas Parkin in order to confuse electors intending to vote for Roy Harris Jenkins." [2] AFAIK, the only SDP candidates to stand against Labour before the official formation of the party were the Social Democratic Alliance candidates in the 1981 GLC election. Warofdreams talk 01:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why the split?

Why is this article split from Social Democratic Party (UK, 1988), surely it was the same organisation after '88, with the same leader etc. G-Man * 17:02, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

No it wasn't. Owen stepped down as SDP leader in 1987, to be succeeded by Robert Maclennan. In 1988 the federal SDP, by whatever means, formally voted to merge with the Liberals and all the assets, headquarters, debts, records etc... of the two parties formally transferred to the new combined party.
If the SDP had the same set-up to the Liberals then it was down to individual branches as to what they did. (The "Continuity Liberal Party" founded in 1989 claims to be a continuation of the Liberals on the basis that three local branches declined to join the merged party but instead signed up to this party.) I'm not sure the SDP had any branches that joined the Owenites though.
Owen, along with two other MPs, was opposed to the merger and declined to join the new party. Instead they and some activists founded a new SDP that claimed to be the existing party, even though legally they didn't carry forward the assets etc... However they for a time were successful in presenting themselves as such (e.g. the media called their conference "the 8th annual conference" or some such). Additionally the SaLaDs/Democrats/Lib Dems, when they weren't tinkering with their name, were presenting themselves as a new party, so the mantle of "successor to the SDP" was easier to grab.
I suspect that under today's legislation this would be a lot more clearcut - the Register of Political Parties would probably allow two registered parties merging to protect both party names, at least in the short term, making it harder for refuseniks to start their own "ressurection" party as they wouldn't be able to reuse the name. (For a similar case, when the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada merged with the Canadian Alliance to form the Conservative Party of Canada, a number of PCP members, including a former leader, rejected the merger. Some (but not all) founded a new party that initially tried to register as the "Progressive Conservative Party of Canada" but this application to register was rejected, so they took the name Progressive Canadian Party.) Timrollpickering 17:54, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Socialist International/Party of European Socialists membership

Can we verify a source that the SDP were in fact part of SI/PES? I find it slightly difficult to believe that a party which was a series electoral threat to the Labour party would have been admitted, but it's not an impossibility, I concede. (Also, if in fact the SDP were a SI/PES affiliated party, did the Owenite rump SDP remain an affiliate?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by MrShyguy (talk • contribs) 15:19, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:SDP gangoffour.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 04:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:SDPLogo.jpg

Image:SDPLogo.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 04:56, 24 January 2008 (UTC)