Was the Liberal revival of the 1960's and 1970's anything more than just a protest vote?

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Was the Liberal revival of the 1960’s and 1970’s anything more than just a protest vote?

When assessing the extent to which the rise in the popularity of the Liberal party occurred in the 1960s and 1970s it is necessary to define what is meant by the term the ‘Liberal revival’, before going on to elucidate whether this revival was brought about by more than just a protest vote.

        For many observers, the Liberal revival was already well under-way with their by-election victory at Orpington in on 14th March1962 in which the Liberal candidate overturned a Conservative majority of 14,760 to a comfortable majority of 7,855 votes. Indeed, for a fleeting moment, the Daily Mail National Opinion Poll (published on 28th march 1962) showed the Liberals to be the most popular party in the country, with the party following up the success at Orpington with a very encouraging percentage of votes polled at Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees and Derby North. However, the high levels of optimism within the party, following these results were soon dashed when it became clear that the party’s revival was somewhat intermittent and erratic, by-elections gains in the 1960s following Orpington were meagre, the victory in Ladywood, Birmingham being the sole success in 1969. Alan Ball in British Political Parties writes that the high point of the Liberal revival came in February 1974 in which the Liberal candidates finished first or second in 51 of the 76 south-east constituencies. As with Orpington though, these substantial gains were not followed up with more electoral victories that would have enabled the Liberal party’s revival to gain real momentum; thus, there was only the late victory at Edgehill, Liverpool in 1969 (following steady Liberal progress in Liverpool throughout the 1970s) to record and general election performances remained poor. The 1964 general election was a bitter disappointment to the Liberals who had been very optimistic following the by-election victories that had preceded the election and in the 1970 general election their party had secured even fewer votes than the 1966 election that returned Wilson to power.

Therefore, when we are referring to the Liberal revival, it is important to be aware that although the party’s revival, electorally, in the period under study has, at times, been impressive, the overall performance of the Liberal party was somewhat erratic with the Liberals seemingly unable to translate local election successes into general election wins. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the 1960s and 1970s did see the breaking up of the two-party hegemony that Labour and the Conservatives had enjoyed since the end of the Second World War and an increase in the popularity of the Liberal party. It is in this light that the Liberal revival of the 1960s and 1970s is best depicted.

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There is a strong case for judging the Liberal revival to be a result of disaffection amongst the electorate, resulting in the definitive factor of the Liberals revival; protest voting. This becomes apparent when looking at the party’s fortunes in the 1950s. During the 1950s the country was sufficiently content, under growing prosperity, to re-elect the Tories twice and the electorate seemed content with the British economy and political climate. In this period the Liberal party were at the nadir of their existence and one Gallup Poll placed the Liberals at 1% of the popular vote. The Liberal party had ceased ...

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