In political and public circles there has long been debate surrounding what the Liberal Democrats really stand for, their policies and beliefs. This election campaign and the resulting Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has brought the UK’s third party into focus as never before. But what do we really know about them and, in particular, their attitudes to trade unions?

The new deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg has been none too complimentary in the past. In an interview not long before the election, Clegg said: “I was at university at the height of the Thatcher revolution and I recognise now something I did not at the time: that her victory over a vested interest, the trade unions, was immensely significant. I don’t want to be churlish: that was an immensely important visceral battle for how Britain is governed.”

In prime minister’s questions, Clegg has likened union funding of the Labour party to Lord Ashcroft’s bankrolling of the Conservative party – choosing to ignore that there is a vast difference between millions of individual members allowing a small proportion of their dues to be paid into a political fund the majority of which goes on political campaigning on jobs, pensions and employment and one rich non-domiciled individual giving millions in order to ‘buy’ specific seats.

Some may offer by way of explanation that Clegg is to the right of his party. But Simon Hughes, who is often considered to be the standard bearer of the ‘left’ within the Lib Dems , boasted during the London mayoral election that if elected he would ‘sort out’ the tube union RMT.

Even ‘Saint’ Vince Cable is more of a sinner when it comes to the trade unions that exist to represent millions of hard working citizens. In a radio interview in March, Cable stated that he supported the curbing of strike action in public services. He since reiterated this anti union stance during the Channel 4 chancellors’ debate and has used a Daily Mail column – yes that well known bastion of liberalism – to equate strikes and the ensuing battles to what he terms “the unresolved issue of party funding.”

In a major threat to the trade union link with the Labour party, the Liberal Democrat 2010 manifesto urges: “Get big money out of politics by capping donations at £10,000 and limiting spending throughout the electoral cycle.” Their manifesto does not simply further expose their real attitudes to trade unions but also to those that the trade unions have a role to represent. It calls for public sector cuts focusing on “pay and public sector pensions”; the scaling back of tax credits and the abolition of the Child Trust Fund – all of which would have a detrimental impact on workers and their families.

The ‘Orange Book Liberals’ (so called following the publishing of the 2004 book of the same name) advocate policy that is far from beneficial to workers – guided by free market principles and economic liberalism that pervades into a number of public areas. David Laws, now chief secretary of the treasury in the Con-Dem coalition, goes as far with his enthusiasm for economic liberalism to suggest that the NHS should be replaced by a national health insurance scheme.

The new business secretary, and oft-seen as the darling of the Liberal Democrats, Vince Cable is another. He argues that government intervention often does more harm than good and calls for less state regulation. Would this apply to the various health and safety legislation brought in by Labour to protect workers from accidents and in some cases, death? Indeed, the same legislation that the Tories have already pledged to weaken and water down.

Liberal Democrat attitudes to workers are not just questionable at a national level. During last year’s bin workers’ strike in Leeds, Lib Dem council leader Richard Brett spent day after day attacking the workers. He accused them of deliberately going sick to get more overtime and threatened to privatise the service.

It is timely then, to remind ourselves that history shows us that the Liberals are no friends of trade unions and the workers’ movement. In 1911, during the ‘Great Unrest’, Liberal chancellor Lloyd George ordered troops in to break up strikers. Under Margaret Thatcher’s government in the 1980s, the party backed the Tories and bosses on their anti-union laws and vicious attacks on the miners’ strike. Yet many are surprised that Clegg’s Liberal Democrats have chosen to get into bed with Cameron’s Conservatives.

The modern Liberal Democrats were formed in 1988, when the remnants of the old Liberal party merged with the new Social Democratic party (SDP).The SDP wanted to get rid of the Labour party and replace it with a party with no links to the ‘troublesome’ trade unions. The very Labour party that has worked with the trade unions over the past thirteen years to put into practice real progressive policies such as the minimum wage, tax credits, equal pay and conditions for part-time workers and an extension in maternity and paternity rights.

With all this said and done, it is right that the Labour party, founded through and with a historical link to the trade unions, did not enter into a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Yes, none of us wanted the reins of power (with a little help from the Lib Dems) to get back into the hands of the Tories but the trade unions will work with the Labour party to re-group, re-build and regain power as the only progressive force for good in this country.

Photo: The Prime Minister’s Office 2010