"Intriguing how the same word can have different associations in different areas.

Same goes for 'liberal', in the US the term is associated with left wing Democrats (correct me if I'm wrong), in the Netherlands the term is associated with the largest right wing party. The Dutch liberals traditionally represent mercantile interests, not unlike the UK Whigs."

I don't think the term `Liberal'  ever had a political meaning in the US.  In the UK, what happened, broadly speaking was that with the emergence of the Labour movement, mercantile and landed/aristocracy largely abandoned their differences in the face of the perceived threat of socialism.  Also, the merchants and industrialists were becoming very rich, fancied themselves as the new aristocracy, and ended up merging with them via peerages and intermarriage.

The Liberal party gradually declined (but never quite vanished) as their supporters drifted to the Conservatives, and the two main rival parties for government eventually became Labour and Conservative, with the remnants of the LIberal party remaining as a receptacle for protest votes.

New Labour is more like a European Social Democrat party these days, while it does look as if the Conservatives are heading in a Christian Democrat direction (though they won't call themselves that).

The funny thing is that the original Liberals (and the American founding fathers) could definitely have been regarded as radicals or lefties, since they opposed inherited wealth, influence and position, which shows that all arguments are really about where you put the political `centre'.

...and if this topic drifts any more, it'll probably get locked :biggrin: