Yeah, that’s not going to happen. This is the best result ever for the Lib Dems purely because people were sick of the Conservative government. That same animosity is not going to be there in five years time.
It depends which way the Tories go. If a) the Tories elect another extremist and if b) the Tory-Reform split nonetheless persists into a second election, FPTP makes all sorts of crazy outcomes possible.
This is essentially what happened in the 1920s that allowed Labour to displant the Liberals in the first place over the course of two elections. Looking from the position of the 1906 Liberal landslide or even coming out of the First World War when the Liberals were still the largest party, the idea of Labour replacing them as a major party would have seemed fanciful. But the Asquith/Lloyd George split led to two Liberal Parties standing against each other in the 1918 and 1922 general elections, and by the time the Liberals reunited in 1923 the damage was done - Labour had snuck through in Liberal seats to become the 2nd party and, given how relentlessly majoritarian our system is, the reunited Liberal Party was unable to reassert themselves.
Worth noting the big difference.
IE their actually being a big difference in the new politics of labour in the 1920s vs the librals of the time.
With the lib dems of today not having a drematic call to change anything. Labor and centrist conservatives much the same basic principals.
Its hard to make any comparison past numbers.
The 1906-22 Liberal-led governments gave the UK progressive taxation, unemployment benefits, the state pension, the first tax-funded healthcare, the end of the primacy of the House of Lords. This was one of the most transformational progressive governments in our country’s history and this is partly why they were winning by-elections in working-class seats right up to the start of the First World War.
I think you’re overestimating the existence of underlying ‘political’ causes of the rise of Labour and underestimating the pure ‘electoral’ factors around the Asquith/Lloyd George split.
Labours rise was more to do with providing a voice for the poor.
IE unions. Prior to unions the majority of poor voters failed to feel they had any control over parliment.
The genral ethos (iE how working class felt) behind the librals was one of the rich gifting to the poor. Not the poor controlling the political spectrum.
This was a huge growth of feeling between the 2 wars. Where the ideas behind socialism started to take hold.
Unfortunately it is impossible to consider the growth of the labour party. Without also considering the effect of the 2 wars timmed directly with that growth. Where a huge feeling of the wealthy using the lives of the poor expanded. (Remember much of what we know about nazi Hermann now. Was not known untill long apart the 2nd war).
So we had 3 to 4 generations coming back from wars they did not see as for themselves.
We see no equivalent change in political motive today. Certainly not from the left. Dispite the negativity towards wealthy leaders growing over the last 20 years.
If Reform continues to rise, I’m expecting a hung parliament next election
