Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Young Liberals abandon students and democracy

It's official today. The Lib Dems' youth & students wing, Liberal Democrat Youth & Students, has relaunched itself under the new name "Liberal Youth". As I've blogged before (Young Lib Dems to become a lie?), both students and democracy have been dropped from the title. It also means the young Lib Dems are using a name that evokes a different party, the Liberal Party, so the Lib Dems can no longer whine about voters being confused by the other party.

Then there's the new Liberal Youth website. Yes that really is their website, not an imitation. What were they thinking?!

But, at the risk of triggering Godwin's Law, I'm surprised very few people have yet picked up that the name has a similarity to that of a rather famous youth movement from the last century. Well some have - see this comment on Liberal Democrat Voice. The excuse that "Youth" was in the old name just doesn't wash as it was watered down by other elements.

In the launch press release (see Liberal Democrat Voice: Nick Clegg launches Liberal Youth) Nick Clegg declared "Britain has a liberal youth. We'll make it Liberal Democrat." And if you believe that you'll believe pigs could fly. Or that there could be a Liberal Democrat government.

Oh and a Google search for "Liberal Youth" currently brings up the following as the top entry:

MySpace.com - LIBERAL YOUTH (not a f***in political party ...
MySpace music profile for LIBERAL YOUTH (not af***in political party) with tour dates, songs, videos, pictures, blogs, band information, downloads and more.
www.myspace.com/liberalyouthschc - 181k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
It's not the best start is it?

3 comments:

David Morris said...

I agree with you about the Liberal Youth's website - it's incredibly ugly. I could do a better job with my hands tied behind my back! It doesn't have that much functionality either.

As for removing the word 'Democracy' from their title, I think you have to remmeber that the likes of Labour and the Conservatives don't have 'Democracy' in their title either. However, I agree with you about it sounding more like a party that doesn't exist anymore.

Tim Roll-Pickering said...

"Democrat" is in the title of the Liberal Democrats though, so for their youth wing to ditch the word is far more significant. And a Liberal Party does still exist in this country made up of anti-merger refuseniks and a handful of others who didn't like the Lib Dems. The Lib Dems hate it, not least because some people think they are the Liberal Party and vote for it instead. See http://www.liberal.org.uk/

Manfarang said...

And the 3rd Way has also registered itself as the National Liberal Party but don't expect it to any electorial breakthroughs soon.

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