Interesting! I actually think that the last liberal party died with the collapse of David Lloyd-George’s government after World War I. I think that the British had by far the clearest ‘liberal’ philosophy in the Anglosphere, and that neither major American party (or any of the minor ones, either) come close. Both Republicans and Democrats have borrowed small pieces of it at different times, but neither has embraced it as a philosophy, which is really too bad. Americans have corrupted the entire meaning of the word in horseshoeing it into our political structure.

When I hear the term “liberal” used in the States I think of the Democrats, who are more to the left than the Republicans, but more to the right than the UK’s two left-of-centre parties: the Liberal Democrats and the (traditional) Labour party. So US-liberal is more to the right than UK-left ideology.

“Liberal” in the UK implies centre-left (and more to the left than the US Democrats), mostly because it’s been adopted by the Liberal Democratic party who adopted that particular place on the political spectrum. Recently, though, it’s become even more confused, since the Labour party and LibDems have effectively swapped places on our political spectrum. (That’s why I referred to “traditional Labour” above, which is far more of a socialist tendency than what is today called New Labour.)

So I think in the UK “liberal” is of less value than in the US, unless its use is very clear in context.

I’ll tel you why I use the term ‘leftist’ (or refer to ‘the Left’) — I think that the term ‘liberal’ in American politics is misapplied to the current ‘Left’ and has been for decades. ‘Liberal’ in classic terms derived from ‘liberty’ and indicated a form of political thought that emphasized personal freedom and reduced government control. ‘Liberals’ then were somewhat akin to libertarians today, without the anarchic insanity that the latter often espouses. Neither American party really reflects classic ‘liberal’ thinking. ‘Liberals’ also rejected isolationism and wanted to spread freedom like a gospel across the world. Wilson was a liberal. Teddy Roosevelt wasn’t.

What passes for ‘liberal’ in American politics is really a statist, New Deal brand of politics that eclipsed liberalism but took its name. ‘Left’ is a more accurate term, IMHO.