@mcc @falken When you find out, please let them know!

I consider them to be mild-Tory with benefits (such as wanting to get rid of first past the post elections)

@mcc @danieldurrans "sensible choices" maybe? Realistically think there was a ton of tactical voting this time, or maybe their are seen as past their disastrous time in government now?

@mcc @falken @danieldurrans socially liberal, pro-capitalism and privatisation. They think they are the grownups, but haven’t realised that Friedman inspired neoliberalism will inevitably erode the socially progressive values they want to hold on to.

@Lingmops @mcc @falken @danieldurrans I never heard LibDems mention privatisation before coalition. That felt like a gang initiation ceremony for Clegg to earn the trust of the other Etonians. Sadly, he didn't check he could trust them.

@mcc @falken @danieldurrans Traditionally they are good at civil rights and fixing democracy, but right of centre on everything else. Recently they've been trying to de-emphasise that first part.

@fishidwardrobe @falken @danieldurrans So what I'm hearing is your parties are "Conservative" "Conservative but they give lip service to economic liberalism" "Conservative but they give lip service to social liberalism"?

@mcc @fishidwardrobe @falken basically yes. Then you have the Fascists and the Environmentalists.

@danieldurrans @fishidwardrobe @falken ok and do the Environmentalists hate queer people now or did that get resolved

@mcc @fishidwardrobe @falken an article I was just reading on PinkNews suggests that their policies are ok but they still have some members who hate trans people.

@danieldurrans Thanks for the information

@mcc @falken @danieldurrans LibDems are what Labour calls 'a broad church'. There are people Left of Starmer and some members entered from further Right during the coalition with the Tories. At their centre, they like freedom but believe it applies to everyone, and it comes with responsibilities. Social Liberals are what they sound like.

@woo @mcc @falken @danieldurrans it's worth remembering the historical reason for this, which is that the Liberal Democrats are the result of a merger between the Liberal party (classical Austrian school liberalism) and the Social Democratic Party, which split off from the Labour Party in the 80s and was broadly similar to European mixed economy centrist social democratic parties. There are still people from both camps in the party, and as a whole the party is obliged to maintain two contradictory ideologies simultaneously. Some members of the party personify this contradiction.

@mcc @falken @danieldurrans it's not so much what they stand for that matters as much as how they stand for it. Remember that episode of The Simpsons where the local Mensa society forms a council to run Springfield? That's the liberal democrats.

@mcc @falken @danieldurrans it might also help to think of them as the autistic people who don't know they're autistic party. This characterisation explains a lot, and also explains why I consistently voted for them until 2010.

@mcc @falken @danieldurrans (I say this with love, I am autistic, if that wasn't clear)

@mcc @falken @danieldurrans I think of them as what we’d have in the US if the Republicans who claim to be “libertarian” were not actually masked fascists seeking the “freedom” to be generally terrible people. There used to be a fair number of “old school” Republicans like that, mostly from New England. A sort of Adam Smith cult that actually understood his works. Wrong, but mostly benignly so.

(If “Classical Liberal” weren’t a ruined term, that.)