Political development

At the request of The Powers That Be in the party, I have contributed to a fairly detailed c.v. on the local party web-site. Looking at it again, I realise that it implies a uniform progression from Liberal to Liberal Democrat politics. The truth is a little more complicated.

Before I went to work in London and joined a trade union, my attitudes were largely those of the Conservative party of Butler (who had introduced the progressive Education Act 1944 under the all-party wartime coalition) and Macmillan who accepted the reforms of the post-war Attlee government, but felt that the nationalisation of commercial enterprises was wrong. Membership of the CSCA opened my eyes to some of the faults of the Establishment. I was temporarily seduced by Harold Wilson's espousal of technology, until he appointed TU dinosaur Frank Cousins to the relevant ministry. It was at that point, and assisted by the Liberal revival of the time, that I realised I was most in tune with the Liberal party, though it was not to be until the 1980s that I made the final commitment.