Sir John Vincent Cable is a British politician who was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2017 to 2019. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Twickenham from 1997 to 2015 and from 2017 to 2019. He also served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills from 2010 to 2015.
Sir Edward Jonathan Davey is a British politician who has served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats since 2020, having acted in the position from 2019 to 2020. He served in the Cameron–Clegg coalition as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change from 2012 to 2015 and as Deputy Leader to Jo Swinson in 2019. An "Orange Book" liberal, he has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Kingston and Surbiton since 2017, and served in the same role from 1997 to 2015.
In British politics, a Lib–Lab pact is a working arrangement between the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party.
Sir Nicholas William Peter Clegg is a British media executive and former politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2015 and as Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2007 to 2015. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Sheffield Hallam from 2005 to 2017. An "Orange Book" liberal, he has been associated with both socially liberal and economically liberal policies.
The 2005 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 5 May 2005, to elect 646 members to the House of Commons. The governing Labour Party led by the prime minister Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, with Blair becoming the second Labour leader after Harold Wilson to form three majority governments. However, its majority fell to 66 seats; the majority it won four years earlier had been of 167 seats. This was the first time the Labour Party had won a third consecutive election. The Liberal Democrats won seats for the third time in a row, and scored the highest Liberal seat number since World War II. As of the 2024 general election this is the last Labour victory in a general election.
Sir Daniel Grian Alexander is a former politician who was Chief Secretary to the Treasury between 2010 and 2015. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey constituency from 2005 until the general election in May 2015. In his first parliamentary term (2005–2010), Alexander was the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Work and Pensions (2007–2008), the Chief of Staff to party leader Nick Clegg, and Chair of the Liberal Democrat Manifesto Group (2007–2010).
Michael James German, Baron German is a Welsh politician who was Deputy First Minister of Wales from 2000 to 2001 and 2002 to 2003 and Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats from 1998 to 2008, first as its de facto leader until 2007 and then as its official leader from 2007. The first-ever deputy first minister of Wales, he was also Minister for Economic Development from 2000 to 2001 and Minister for Rural Affairs and Wales Abroad from 2002 to 2003. He was elected to the National Assembly for Wales in 1999 where he was Assembly Member (AM) for South Wales East until 2010 and led his party group until 2008. In 2010, he was granted a life peerage and has since served in the House of Lords as a working peer for the Liberal Democrats. Ideologically, he is on the more liberal wing of his party.
The 2006 United Kingdom local elections were held on Thursday 4 May 2006.
The Scottish Liberal Democrats is a liberal, federalist political party in Scotland, part of UK Liberal Democrats. The party holds 4 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament and 4 of the 59 Scottish seats in the House of Commons It has 87 local councillors of 1,227..
The Liberal Democrats are a political party in the United Kingdom, founded in 1988. The party had 11 members of Parliament (MPs) elected at the 2019 general election, and had an additional 4 elected by winning by-elections prior to the dissolution of parliament on 30 May 2024 and were the fourth largest party in the House of Commons. They have 84 members of the House of Lords, four Members of the Scottish Parliament, one member in the Welsh Senedd, and over 3,000 local council seats. The Liberal Democrat Conference formulates the party's policies.
The 2003 Windsor and Maidenhead Borough Council election took place on 1 May 2003 to elect members of Windsor and Maidenhead Unitary Council in Berkshire, England. The whole council was up for election with boundary changes since the last election in 2000 reducing the number of seats by 1. The Liberal Democrats gained overall control of the council from no overall control.
The events surrounding the formation of the United Kingdom's government in 2010 took place between 7 May and 12 May 2010, following the 2010 general election, which failed to produce an overall majority for either of the country's two main political parties. The election, held on 6 May, resulted in the first hung parliament in the UK in 36 years, sparking a series of negotiations which would form the first coalition government since the Second World War.
The 2015 United Kingdom general election in England was held on Thursday, 7 May 2015 for 533 English seats to the House of Commons. The Conservatives won a majority of seats in England for the second time since 1992.
The 2017 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 8 June 2017, two years after the previous general election in 2015; it was the first since 1992 to be held on a day that did not coincide with any local elections. The governing Conservative Party led by the prime minister Theresa May remained the largest single party in the House of Commons but lost its small overall majority, resulting in the formation of a Conservative minority government with a confidence and supply agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland.
The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 12 December 2019, with 47,567,752 registered voters entitled to vote to elect 650 members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons. The governing Conservative Party led by the prime minister, Boris Johnson, won a landslide victory with a majority of 80 seats, a net gain of 48, on 43.6 per cent of the popular vote, the highest percentage for any party since the 1979 general election, though with a narrower popular vote margin than that achieved by the Labour Party over the Conservatives at the 1997 general election. This was the second national election to be held in 2019 in the United Kingdom, the first being the 2019 European Parliament (EP) election.
Alexander Geoffrey Cole-Hamilton is an English politician who has served as Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats since 2021 and the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Edinburgh Western constituency since 2016.
The 2018 Oxford City Council election took place on 3 May 2018, to elect 24 of the 48 members of Oxford City Council in England. This was on the same day as other local elections in England. Each of Oxford's 24 wards elected one councillor, with the other seat in each ward next due for election in May 2020.
The 2024 United Kingdom general election is scheduled for Thursday, 4 July 2024. It will determine the composition of the House of Commons, which determines the government of the United Kingdom. Significant constituency boundary changes will be in effect – the first such changes since those implemented at the 2010 general election. It will be the first UK general election in which voter identification is required to vote in person in Great Britain. The general election will be the first since the UK's departure from the European Union on 31 January 2020, which was a major issue in the previous election; it will also be the first to take place under the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022.
The 2020 Liberal Democrats leadership election was held in August 2020, after Jo Swinson, the previous leader of the Liberal Democrats, lost her seat in the 2019 general election. It was initially set to be held in July 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic it was delayed by six weeks, having been at first postponed until May 2021.
Nick Clegg served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2015 under the coalition administration with David Cameron. He has been associated with both socially liberal and economically liberal policies, and supported reduced taxes, electoral reform, cuts on defence spending and an increased focus on environmental issues.
