685 Liberal Party Assembly

First  viewed  :  September  1984

There  isn't  that  much  more  to  say   about  this  having  covered  much  of  the  same  ground  a  couple  of  posts  ago. The  Liberal  Party  Assembly  followed  on  from  the   Conference  of  their  SDP  partners  and  what  stood  out  most  was  an  impassioned  quasi-unilateralist  speech   from  their  coming  man  Paddy  Ashdown  against  the  siting  of   cruise  missiles  which  he  described  as  "militarily  useless". I  also  recall  a  smart  quip  from  David  Steel  that , having  met  Reagan  and  Chernenko,  he  wished  that  the  two  men  on  whom  the  future  of  the  world  depended  had  a  more  long  term  interest  in  it.

The  only  thing  I  recall  from  the  1985  conference  was  an  interview  with  Lloyd  George's  surviving  daughter  Lady  Olwyn  Carey-Evans , a  sprightly  93-year  old.

The  1986  Assembly  was  notable  for  the  Owen-baiting  vote  on  defence  and  tributes  to  the  popular  MP  David  Penhaligon  who'd  died  in  a  car  crash  earlier  that  year. Of  more  local  interest  was  the  brief  appearance  of  Cyril  Smith  who  usually  boycotted  the  assemblies  but  popped  in  just  to  declare  that  he  would  be  standing  in  Rochdale  again.   I  was  working  by  the  time  of  the  1987 Assembly.

I  did  watch  some  of  the  special  Assembly - the  final  one  of  the  old  party- called  to  vote  on  merger  which   was  held  over  a  weekend  in  1988. I  recall  a  characteristically  bonkers  speech  by  a  woman  called  Claire  Brooks. Brooks  is  largely  forgotten  now  but  in  the  seventies  she  had  quite  a  high  profile  as  a  perennial  Liberal candidate  who  kept  the  Tory  MP  for  Skipton  on  his  toes,  coming  closest  to  ousting  him  in  October  1974 . She  appeared  fairly  regularly  on  Question  Time  and  could  always  be  relied  upon  to  go  over  the  top . And  she  did  so  in  1988.

She  didn't  like  the  idea  of  merging  with  the  SDP. fearing  the  Liberals  would  lose  their  radical  edge  and  reminded  the  delegates  of  all  the  twentieth  century  disasters  that  wouldn't  have  happened  if  the  Liberals  had  kept  their  backbone  straight  seventy  years  earlier.  If  I  recall  correctly,  her  diatribe  ended  with  the  phrase  "Liberals  where  are  your  balls ?"  The   riposte  came  from  another  perennial  candidate  until  ennobled, Baroness  Nancy  Sear, a  pro-merger  champion  who  dismissed  Brooks  with  her  opening  phrase  "After  that  somewhat  selective  view  of  recent  history...." enunciated  with  exquisite  aristocratic  disdain. Her  position  won  the  day, the  Liberal  Democrats  were  born  and  Brooks  faded  from  public  view.