Assessment of the View that Liberalism has Triumphed as the Dominant Ideology in Contemporary British Politics

Assessment of the View that Liberalism has Triumphed as the Dominant Ideology in Contemporary British Politics

When establishing whether liberalism is the dominant ideology in

contemporary British politics, we must first establish the meaning of

the key terms; liberalism, ideology and contemporary. The Oxford

English Dictionary defines contemporary as, "living or occurring in

the same or present modern period". This basically means present day.

When defining ideology we must understand that there are a variety of

ways in which it could be interpreted. In a political context ideology

is; a perspective of the world in which there are a set of values and

a plan of action as to how to achieve this and a view of the future of

an ideal society. This therefore means, in the context of the question

the modern, present day ideology.

As I stated before, we must establish what liberalism means. There are

two types of liberalism; classic and modern. It could be argued that

as one of the major political ideologies in British politics today,

liberalism is distinguished between by the importance it attaches to

the civil and political rights of individuals as described by

Hobhouse. Liberals demand a sustainable realm of personal freedom -

including freedom of conscience, speech, association, occupation, and,

more recently, sexuality - which the state should not intrude upon,

except to protect us from harm. Classic liberalism consists of

economic freedom, laissez-faire, individualism and personal freedom.

Modern or progressive liberalism is more towards state intervention as

long as it is beneficial to us as people, equality of opportunity and

reaso...

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...nda, it was

elected into power. This shows how dominant liberalism really is as an

ideology because since they adopted liberal concepts, they were

elected.

To conclude it could be argued that liberalism has triumphed as the

dominant ideology because some of the major parties want to use those

policies. It must be stressed that liberalism itself has been a highly

successful movement challenging conservatism and socialism with great

effect. It in only the Liberal Party that has declined. In short, most

of the liberal clothes have been stolen by others and are still being

worn by them. Despite disagreements about its philosophical

foundations, the basic language of liberalism - individual rights,

liberty, equality of opportunity - has become the dominant language of

public discourse in British contemporary politics.