Easily you must be one of the more definitive liberals who blog, simply by your healthy scepticism and refusal to accept and identify with recieved definitions (whatever you say i am, that’s what i’m not). And therefore you must take a more active role in the party, if only to drag it into a more widely-accepted position of popularity.

I dislike the relativity of terms like left and right, and I am mostly disillusioned with all ‘ism’s - my preference is for a perception of the necessary interaction of diverse opinion, experience and knowledge - which coincides with the holistic dynamic of a ‘diffuse’ liberalism (which all people belong to and participate in, to their own level and extent).
The provision of a coherent set of beliefs which integrate ideals with a practical approach for getting there is the biggest hinderance to most discussion.
For example (now I’m trouble-making), you mention grappling with the issue of a constitution, to which you are graduating towards the belief that it may be a good idea. Personally, I find this particular chestnut amusing, and demur.
The arguments for and against are well-established and solid, so if it does become difficult to choose, why force a choice - you can simply synthesize theory with practice within a wider context of reform and modernisation.
I quite like the fact we have human beings to represent and embody our constitution rather than a permanent, dessicated piece of paper.
However I’m less happy with the broken chain of representation that reaches it’s zenith with an overarching sovereign sustained by outmoded and undemocratic rules of monopoly.
I think there is a way to find an optimal balance, but I also know even if we do it won’t be the end of anything.

I cannot support any party that want to interfere more, tax more and legislate more. Lib Dems sometimes seem more authoritarian and statist than Labour hence I cannot support them.

I also believe that ultimately I can persuade you and those on the notional ‘right’ of the validity of this position. I also share your preference for a low, flat tax (with a high threshold), but would combine it with a Citizen’s Basic Income as favoured by the Greens, and am strongly in favour not just of a LVT, but of a tax on any ‘property’, such as broadcast spectrum rights and similar.

Some find me too ‘left’ wing for the party, but at other times my strong support of markets leads me to be accused of too ‘right’ for the party.

You’re a liberal—we both are. Until such time as we have an electoral system that truly allows a representative parliament, we have the current three party system, and we both belong in the Lib Dems. After? I look forward to the coalition negotiations between the liberal/left and the liberal/right parties that we should respectively belong to…

However, this isn’t the most important thing I’d like to point out to you, though I think that you’d benefit if you’d see the trouble to read Berlin’s essay.

Though you probably don’t consider yourself a socialist, I’d like to quote a passage from Ludwig von Mises’ book “Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis“. If you want, you can in your mind replace the words “socialism” and “liberalism” with some other words, which you find more appropriate, but please pay attention to the fact, that two people can share the same goals, but disagree on how to achieve them.

“Socialistic writers, especially those who recommend Socialism for ethical reasons, like to say that in a socialistic society public welfare would be the foremost aim of the State, whereas Liberalism considers only the interests of a particular class. Now one can only judge of the value of a social form of organization, liberal or socialistic, when a thorough investigation has provided a clear picture of what it achieves. But that Socialism alone has the public welfare in view can at once be denied. Liberalism champions private property in the means of production because it expects a higher standard of living from such an economic organization, not because it wishes to help the owners. In the liberal economic system more would be produced than in the socialistic. The surplus would not benefit only the owners. According to Liberalism therefore, to combat the errors of Socialism is by no means the particular interest of the rich. It concerns even the poorest, who would be injured just as much by Socialism. Whether or not one accepts this, to impute a narrow class interest to Liberalism is erroneous. The systems, in fact, differ not in their aims but in the means by which they wish to pursue them.”

Whilst we often disagree and at times you may see me as being quasi-socialist and too ’statist’ it is the areas we AGREE on that bind us together in the LDs. Certainly of the three main parties it is the only one where healthy debate and dissention can actually move the party forward.

My blog is typified by populist shorter contributions than yours, but your contributions frequently thought provoke and give me an insight into the strand of ‘right wing’ (sic) liberalism you believe in. For reasons outlined in many of my previous posts it is far preferable to be in a party with you that self-styled ‘lefts’ like George Galloway, whose idea of truth, tolerance and debate fail to match mine. And, thats before looking at his voting record in parliament !

Duncan Borrowman, as I have tended to do, has wondered if you might be best described as a libertarian conservative, but you rebut this with very sound reasons why you could never join the Tories.

Overall my views could be characterised as left libertarian, rather than statist socialism. Economically I wish to see an extension of localised economies (time banks, LETS, credit unions], mutuals / co-operatives as an alternative to public / private monopolies. Power needs to be pushed down to the lowest practicable level and for people to take greater charge of their own communities, so ideas like restorative justice and community panels suit this former community worker whose ethos is to work with, as much as - and in preference to - for, individuals and communities.

This is an approach that cuts across red / green / yellow [but not blue] thinking. This was the style of working / emphasis that I tried to adopt even as a one-time [Labour] councillor.

Where we probably stridently disagree is summed up by the last paragraph in my most recent post : to paraphrase the LD constitution - no-one should be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity - but what real freedoms exist if one lives in inadequate housing, suffers from poor health or is on a subsistence level income ? Choices ? What choices do such people have ? There is still a role for the state, at least as ‘guarantors’ to protect the most vulnerable in society.

Great post though Tristan !

PS In a real rush so apologies for typos / grammatical howlers !

So, let me put it another way. Socialism hijacked part of a generally previously liberal consensus grouping of radicals, liberals, chartists, Diggers, Proudhonists, Owenites, anarchists and so on. And because it made its appeal to the very great bulk of the people who called themselves “labour”, the “working class” etc, it proved overwhelming to what was left of that previously free trade, anti-monopoly generally liberal alternative to the patristic, reactionary, aristocracy based “right”.

My main point, whatever I called it, was that this produced a political environment which for most of the twentieth century - at least from about the Depression till 1994 - in which liberalism, real liberalism, found it extremely difficult to operate.

I believe we now have an opportunity to retake the initiative - what with the ideology-free movement of both Labour and Tories. But, like Tristan (I suspect) I believe that means weaning some members of our own Liberal Democrat movement off of quasi-socialist policies especially regarding the size and competence of the state and reasserting what had been a more or less unchallenged consensus on this “pre-socialist left” that it was free trade and breaking state-protected monopolies that had the greatest potential to give the labouring majority a fair crack at the wealth generating whip.

Does that make more sense now? (I wish there was a preview button as I am having a bit of difficulty reading back what I wrote - my eyesight seems to be not what it was!)