Kmflett's Blog

Swinson says Corbyn’s ideas are 1970s & Johnson’s 1870s but hers are Eighteenth Century

Adam Smith

The foreword to the 2019 LibDem General Election Manifesto contains the following statement.

While it might agreed that some of Labour’s ideas are rooted in the 1970s- reforms often take a good while to make their way into anything like practical policy, its not clear why Swinson thinks Johnson’s ideas, in so far as he has a settled body of views, are rooted in the 1870s. Perhaps she is referring to Disraeli which would be a huge compliment to Johnson.

Voters are being told that the only choice is between the Conservatives and Labour. But when I look at Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn, I know that I could do a better job as Prime Minister than either of them. Our country deserves better than what is on offer from the two tired old parties, each led by men who want to reuse ideas from the past – whether the 1870s or the 1970s – and gamble with our children’s futures.

Swinson herself is an Orange Book Liberal, the right wing of the Party that supports free market economics. As the paragraph underlines the ideas of the Orange Book are rooted, although not entirely based, on those of Adam Smith who died in 1790

Vince Cable, the party’s treasury spokesman and co-author of the book, wants to reclaim the economic territory mapped out by Adam Smith, the free market liberal thinker who has traditionally been associated with the Tory right. He argues for a dramatic reduction in international trade barriers and environmental regulations to allow Third World nations to trade with the developed world. Independent (The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith