I never could understand why the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives weren't one party. Seems a ridiculous splitting of the right-leaning vote. No wonder Labour's in office.
The LibDems are a very strange animal traditionally (since the 1950’s) they where socially liberal but economically inclined towards the right.
In the 1980’s when the Labour Party swung radically to the left (thanks to Kinnock and Blair that has been reversed) a group of heavy weights from the right of the party and their followers spilt from the main party and formed the SDP (Social Democratic Party), despite a share of the vote nearly on a par with Labour they failed to gain many seats, only 24 compared with Labour’s just over 200. Over the 1980’s the SDP declined as those on the left of the group drifted toward the LibDems while those of a more moderate almost conservative disposition lead by the charismatic David Owen refused to grow closer to the LibDems. In the end most of the SDP merged with the Liberal Party (as it was then) and formed the Liberal Democratic Party. Owen held out but his party eventually collapsed.
Under the leadership of a former paratrooper named Paddy Ashdown the Liberal Democrats positioned themselves as “compassionate moderates” between the Conservatives who where seen as uncaring and the Labour Party which was still suspected of not having put its radical turn to the left of a few years before behind it, and in the 1992 general election they did well. In 1994 when Blair became leader of the Labour Party he moved the Labour party to a position very similar to that Ashdown has occupied as compassionate, principled, moderates while the Conservative Party suffered a seemingly never ending series of scandals and great divisions over the issue of Europe both of which destroyed public faith in the government and exacerbated the image of the Conservative Party as arrogant and out of touch.
After 1997 when Labour was elected with one of the biggest landslides in history, the Liberals doubled their seats in parliament, the LibDems and the Labour government worked together on a number of issues, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that had Labour had a much smaller majority Blair wanted to form a full-blown coalition.
In 2001 Ashdown step down as leader and the party elected the rather lightweight Charles Kennedy, a Scottish MP and a former Labour Party Member and then SDP MP before joining the LibDems. Kennedy distanced himself from Ashdown’s policy of close cooperation but not radically however he began to attempt to attract socially liberal conservatives, as the Conservative Party had lurch far to the right under the inept and directionless leadership of Iain Duncan-Smith. The War on Iraq was the issues which changed every thing, Blair had long antagonised those further to the left and added to this on Iraq and a number of controversial domestic programs he was under pressure from the moderate left leaning middle classes, Kennedy attempted to ride the wave of the Iraq war the leader of the largest party to oppose the war (both Labour and the Conservatives backing it) he attacked the Government from the left this helped his standing as Iraq failed to “pan out”. In the aftermath of Iraq Blair pushed on with his domestic agenda that angered many on the left and Kennedy attacked Blair on these programs in public services as being too conservative and pro-free-market as Iraq has got worse and Blair has come under more pressure Kennedy has moved further to the left attempting to undermine Labour’s base which is not fully supportive of Blair’s moderate polices.
In the long term I think Kennedy’s abandonment of the centre ground occupied by Ashdown and attempt to outflank Blair to the Left, championing higher taxation and unreformed public services and an expansion of the welfare state as well as a leftwing foreign policy, which includes withdrawal from Iraq. In the Long term with public services improving with Iraq most probably improving and troop numbers being reduced Kennedy will lose some support. However the real damage will come when Brown probably succeeds Blair some time in the next three years or so, Blair will be gone, the leader of the Labour party will pursue similar polices but will talk unabashedly about “red meat” labour issues and will seem like a very “labour politician” a very traditional moderate labour leader like the late John Smith (leader of the party 1992-1994), it does not matter that policy will change little it will draw a line under the Blair tenure, the leftwing base will largely fall back into place behind a Brown lead government and the LibDems will find themselves caught between their traditional centrist base gravitating toward the Conservatives (who will have recovered a great deal three years or so from now) and the Labour Party reasserting dominance over its base and the left leaning middle class.
So I think it highly unlikely that the LibDems would ever merge with the Conservatives, people vote for the LibDems as centrist or (more so these days) leftwingers not as a party which leans to the right, if anything the LibDems should look to merging with the Labour Party but with Kennedy's leadership that looks unlikely, in the end I think Kennedy has attempted to flank Labour and it will fail and that in so doing he will see the LibDems torn apart by pressure from the need to hold on to their centrist core support and the Leftwing support he has tried to attract... such are the perils of pandering , he could do the LibDems incredible damage.
