The claim that has really irritated me among the many inexactitudes that are being perpetrated by the Liberal Democrats during the election campaign is that they are in some way newer than 'the two old parties'.
I feel that I must remind people that the Whig party/Liberals, from whom sprung the Liberal Democrats, have far older roots than the Labour Party. The date that is generally quoted for their foundation is 1784, when Charles Fox assumed the leadership of the party in opposition to the Conservative, William Pitt the Younger.
The Labour Party, as I am sure that all my readers are aware, only got going in the early years of the 20th century.
The James Gilray cartoon (1783) above, which features leading Whigs of the age, is entitled 'The New State Whirligig'. The picture includes the words 'Poor John Bull's House plundered at noon day'.
Quite.
