Será que ainda há esperança para os Lib Dems?

Os Lib Dems nunca primaram pela consistência mas, numa altura em que a confusão parece continuar a reinar entre os Tories, este é pelo menos um bom sinal: Lib Dems call for pro-market move

The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism features a series of essays by frontbench spokesmen and would-be MPs.

They call for choice and private sector innovation in public services and the "repatriation" of some EU powers.

Welcomed by leader Charles Kennedy, the book is being seen by some as a move to the right to attract Tory voters.###

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In the book he says his party must revisit and reclaim "some of the traditional building blocks of Liberalism" if they are to play a "creative and constructive role" in British politics.

"It is time to consider whether the Liberal Democrat Party of today is true to its Liberal traditions, and, if not, what we should be doing about it," he says.

The Lib Dems, he argues, have defended civil liberties against "a succession of illiberal home secretaries", but they have rarely defended liberalism "against the nanny state".

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Mr Laws also calls for more competition and choice in public services such as health.

He says some Liberals wrongly shunned economic liberalism when Margaret Thatcher embraced a free market approach because they no longer thought it compatible with a "social liberal agenda".

On the European Union, Mr Laws says the party's commitment to internationalism has overridden its commitment to decentralised government.