David Steel

• Date de parution : 18/09/2012
• Editeur : Epagine
• EAN : 9781849544665
• Série : (-)
• Support : Livre numérique

• Nombre de pages : (-)
• Collection : (-)
• Genre : Sciences appliquées
• Thème : Sciences appliquées
• Prix littéraire(s) : (-)

Michael Foot was speaking affectionately when in 1979 he quipped that David Steel had apparently gone from 'rising hope to elder statesman'; without any intervening period whatsoever. But the remark also neatly captured a career which had seen 'the Boy David'; enter the House of Commons aged... Voir plus

Michael Foot was speaking affectionately when in 1979 he quipped that David Steel had apparently gone from 'rising hope to elder statesman'; without any intervening period whatsoever. But the remark also neatly captured a career which had seen 'the Boy David'; enter the House of Commons aged only twenty-six, become leader of the Liberal Party in 1976 (at thirty-eight years old one of the youngest party leaders in British history) and then, within months of his election, lead his party into a controversial Lib-Lab Pact with James Callaghan';s Labour government. Taking the lead in demanding cooperation with the new Social Democratic Party, Steel helped the Alliance poll an unprecedented share of the vote for a third party in the 1983 election. Alongside David Owen of the SDP, he fought another memorable election four years later as one of the 'two Davids'; and later became the major force behind the troubled birth of the Liberal Democrat Party. Based on extensive interviews and fresh archival research, this biography - with which Steel has cooperated - charts both the 'rising hope'; and 'elder statesman'; phases in Steel';s career, as well as his role as the first Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament and his political legacy in light of the post-2010 Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.