---
election_year: 1966
party_id: liberal
party_name: Liberal Party
party_leader: Jo Grimond
political_spectrum: centre
victory: false
government_outcome: opposition
sections:
  - economy
  - taxation
  - health
  - education
  - housing
  - immigration
  - defence
  - foreign-policy
  - transport
  - welfare
  - democracy-and-constitution
  - agriculture
  - science-and-technology
  - local-government
---

# Liberal Democrats Manifesto 1966

**Liberal / SDP / Libdem Manifestos**

---

## For All the People: the Liberal Plan of 1966

## Britain Demands a New Approach

Eighteen months ago many people had high hopes that a change of Government from Conservative
to Labour would bring about a real change in the country's fortunes. They had watched
the country drift from one economic crisis to another and seen how Britain's rate of
expansion and industrial growth had continued to fall behind that of other countries.

Now events have shown that, for all their talk about modernisation, Labour too cannot find the
answer to our problems. However admirable their intentions. they, like the Conservatives, have
been unable to implement workable solutions.

There are very simple reasons for this. Both parties have their roots firmly in one section of
the community or another. The Conservatives, both ideologically and financially, are still tied
to the interests of capital. Equally Labour are tied to the interests of the Unions, often to
the detriment of both.

Is it surprising that their actions are seldom acceptable or effective for the country as a
whole?

### Why are the Liberals different?

Today, more than ever, the unique position of the Liberal Party enables us to bring new
thinking and a fresh, objective approach to Britain's economic and social problems
and to put forward solutions that work. We can do this precisely because we have no
vested interest in protecting one group or another. We are not a class party'. We draw
our support from all groups and classes and we are free to reconcile conflicting interests
for the benefit of the whole community. We are the party of all individuals, no matter what
their background.

### What the Liberals have achieved.

Already the three million votes polled at the last election in support of Liberal attitudes
and Liberal policies have acted as a powerful brake and a positive influence on the policies
of the Labour Government. Indeed the Liberal Party has provided the only effective opposition
in curbing the wasteful excesses of Socialism and compelling Labour to give priority to at
least some of the things that matter.

**Steel Nationalisation** was shelved as a result of Liberal pressure and saved the country
millions of pounds. Without that pressure it could still happen.

**Land Nationalisation** was checked in response to Liberal pressure. The nationalisation
of small plots of building land in private ownership has been dropped.

**Pensions and Rates.** Although Labour's plans do not go far enough Liberal pressure
has forced the Government to put these issues before further nationalisation plans.

**The Neglected Regions.** For years Liberals have been calling for action to revitalise
the depressed areas of Britain. Even the tentative moves now being made by Labour would not
have been made but for Liberal pressure.

**The Highland Development Board.** A clear example of a Liberal proposal being implemented
by Labour in response to pressure from the Highland Liberal MPs.

**A Really Positive Vote.** The effectiveness of Liberal pressure to date is only the
beginning. An increased number of Liberal MPs and an increased Liberal vote in each
constituency will bring about still more positive action in Parliament. And there is plenty
to be done.

The most vital need is for a fresh and realistic approach to economic planning, defence and
the machinery of government, because only then will the wealth be created that can bring about
a real improvement in living standards, housing, education and the social services for all the
people of Britain.

The policies outlined show the positive action that is needed. Consider them carefully and
decide for yourself.

Three million people voted Liberal last time for what they knew was right. The 10 Liberal
MP's have done the work of 30 times that many. Those votes have really counted. A higher
vote. More MPs. The same drive. And a Liberal Government will be near.

## How to Create the Wealth

### Britain Must Pay Her Way

**Facing World Realities.** Britain today has the slowest rate of growth of any developed
industrial economy. By 1980, if present trends continue, the only countries in Western Europe
with a lower living standard will be Portugal and Spain. One reason for this pitiful
performance is the attempt to carry world responsibilities far beyond our means.

In 1964 Britain's military spending overseas was £305 million, accounting for over
half the country's debt. Expenditure of this kind hits us all.

The Labour Government is now trying to cut it down, but it has failed to cut the basic
commitments, which made us spend the money, many of which are no longer realistic.

Britain is also still the centre of a world wide currency system. Attempts to sustain the
system have placed our economic policy in a strait-jacket and added a further restriction
on our growth. In consequence we now have the largest debt in our history.

The Government must work for a radical reform of the world's financial system, in which
we shall pool our exchange reserves with those of other Western powers and jointly assume
responsibility for managing a new reserve currency.

While illusions of military and economic grandeur must be dropped, British industry needs the
wider horizon of the Common Market. British exports to Europe have suffered badly from our
exclusion. Waiting for something to turn up is not a policy. Britain must declare now her
intention to join the European Community.

**Growth Comes First.** The Labour Government has now set up a Department of Economic
Affairs, but real power over economic policy still remains in the cautious hands of the
Treasury. The Department of Economic Affairs can only become a real driving force for
expansion if it has authority over short term as well as long term planning. It should work
in partnership with a new Parliamentary standing committee on economic affairs in the
formulation, execution and continuous modification of a new national economic plan.

**Simplify the Tax System.** The tax system must be overhauled and simplified so that it
encourages efficiency rather than evasion. A standing committee of experts from industry,
finance and Government must be set up to fit successive budgetary measures into a sustained
programme of tax reform.

**Cut Direct Taxation.** Direct taxation must be systematically cut and some of the burden
shifted to inherited wealth and gifts. Death duties should be replaced by a legacy duty, to
encourage the wider distribution of wealth.

Tax reliefs for industrial investment, even after the new grants, are less than they were two
years ago. They should be restored to the previous level and increased as soon as possible to
a level comparable with that of other industrial countries. Office machinery and services which
earn foreign exchange should be allowed to benefit from investment grants.

**Bring Down Prices.** All people, but particularly the old and those living on fixed
incomes, are hit by constantly rising prices. Between 1951 and 1964 the value of the £
dropped to 13s. 0d. Since the last Election the cost of living has risen by a further 13s. 0d
in the pound.

The effective way to bring down prices is to increase competition by cutting tariffs. Because
this would hit monopolies and price rings it would increase efficiency, and prices would fall
accordingly. If necessary the maintenance of price rings and gross restrictive practices
should be made criminal offences.

**A Positive Incomes Policy.** An Incomes Policy is a necessary aid, if we are to check
inflation with a minimum of unemployment, and achieve a fair distribution of the wealth we
have, but to succeed an incomes policy must emphasise the need for greater productivity and
efficiency before wages and incomes are increased.

In Western Germany reasonable price stability has been maintained, with only 1 per cent
unemployment (less than in Britain today), thanks to planned immigration, generous redundancy
arrangements and systematic training to induce people to change jobs. In Britain, an ambitious
retraining programme is needed with payment of average national earnings during retraining.
Longer periods of notice should be given to those who must change jobs. There must be a
greater expansion in management training and shorter and more flexible apprenticeships.

Where there is direct confrontation with a large Union, Government intervention by tariff cuts
or taxes may sometimes be necessary to prevent exorbitant wage increases in particular
industries, but we would prefer wage increases to be restricted voluntarily. Labour's
Prices and Incomes Bill can only undermine the confidence of the Unions.

Government pressure should be exerted to create strong unions covering whole industries and to
rationalise the wage structure. Bargaining at individual plant level, in which higher earnings
are negotiated in return for abandonment of restrictive practices, must be encouraged.

### Partnership in Industry Pays

**Getting both 'Sides' Together.** Strikes, stoppages and demarcation disputes
are three major causes of Britain's failure to pay her way. Too often they arise from
class prejudices, the failure of employer and employee to understand each other's
problems and the lack of any common purpose between them.

Each 'side's' distrust of the other's interests has led to inefficiency
and prevented any lasting solution being reached. The Liberal Party, bound by no such
interests, is in a unique position to bring the two 'sides' together and be
accepted in doing so.

**A 'Say'.** The first step must be to give employees more say in the running of
the companies in which they work. Company law must be amended to require the setting up of
Works Councils for regular consultation and negotiation between employee and management on all
major issues affecting their company.

**A Stake.** Employees must be given the same status as shareholders and the consequent
right to elect directors to the Board.

Management should be encouraged by tax incentives to increase employee shareholding, because a
financial stake is an important part of a man's involvement with, and responsibility to,
the company for which he works.

Industrial efficiency depends on partnership not conflict. Our proposals would bring about
this partnership.

**Contracts of Service.** A standard contract of service should be introduced covering the
right to Union representation; an equal range of security benefits for wage and salary
earners; holiday pay based on average earnings; a guaranteed opportunity for further education
and training in employer's time; and equal rates of pay for men and women doing identical
work. With such contracts it would be easier to gain the acceptance of arbitration rather than
the immediate resort to industrial force and the contracts could be enforceable in the civil
courts.

**Harness Technology.** The establishment of the Ministry of Technology has not led to the
'white hot scientific revolution' promised by Labour before the last election. There
have been small increases in government financed support for the National Research Development
Corporation and for computers, but the machinery for science and technology is much the same
as it was under the Tories.

Among Liberal proposals are expansion of the Atomic Energy Programme, reorganisation of the
Council for Scientific Policy, with wider terms of reference, better co-ordination of the Work
and Research Associations and full transferability of pensions for the Civil Service so as to
ensure mobility of scientific manpower.

### Expansion in Farming Pays

If you are a farmer or farm worker, today you can have little cause for satisfaction with
Conservative and Labour farming policies. Both parties have allowed farming to drift The
farmer's life is hedged about with uncertainty. He never knows whether to expand or
contract. His workers often leave the land.

If you are a housewife, you too will have seen how this uncertainty has brought fluctuations
and increases in the prices of meat, milk and dairy produce.

A few years ago only the Liberal Party recognised the need for selective expansion in food
production. We called for a system of managed markets for home and imported produce under a
Meat and Grain Commission, and a system of agricultural support that gave the farmer his
return from the market rather than from subsidies, and one that guaranteed reasonable prices
to the housewife.

The other parties now favour agricultural expansion, but the Labour proposals in the National
Plan envisage a rate of growth in beef and pork production slower than that of the last five
years. Only the dairy herd is set for expansion but the incentive to farmers is insufficient.

We welcome Labour's tentative scheme for easier farm credit, but we would extend it by a
Land Banking system to help bona fide small farmers and ex-farm workers to make their farms
efficient and modern.

**Better Prices for Beef.** If this country wants beef the Government must recognise the
need to pay substantially more to the producer. Substantial price increases would in turn give
the producer a higher price for calves and enable marginal milk producers to turn over to
livestock. The confidence n expansion created would remove the need to raise milk prices to
the housewife.

**Cereals Expansion.** As long as subsidies remain at their present level, there will be
uncertainty for both Government and farmer. With a managed cereal market the price could be
gradually raised until the subsidy is eliminated.

**Cost.** These price adjustments would be self-balancing. The money saved on cereal
subsidies and the levies collected on imports would provide sufficient funds for the increase
in livestock prices. Introduced over a period of years, this new system and increased
technological investment in farming would create for the farmer the firm prospect of
expansion, a real increase in income, and a decreasing dependence on imported produce.

### Bring New Life to the Neglected Regions

**A National Physical Plan.** For too many people there is little incentive to stay in the
area of their birth. Culturally and financially the draw is toward the South East.

While Britain has a national plan for the economy, there is no national physical plan to
redress this balance. The drift to the South East continues. Only in the Highlands, where the
Liberals swept the board at the last Election, has Labour, under pressure, set up a Development
Board with money and real powers.

There must be a national plan for the future redistribution of population and development and
the decentralisation of power and wealth from London.

**Scotland and Wales.** Greater power to run their own affairs must be given to the people
of Scotland and Wales.

The Royal Commission on Scottish Local Government must be extended to examine particularly the
devolution of power from Whitehall to Edinburgh with a view to establishing an elected Scottish
Parliament.

A Council of Wales must be established and a Welsh Development Agency set up to plan, to tend
money and to promote new industries.

There must be broader regional tax advantages to stimulate development in Northern Ireland.

**Elected Regional Councils.** Regional Councils nominated by the Central Government give
those who live in the regions neither a say in their affairs nor a responsibility for them.
Regional councillors must be elected - and paid. This is not a part-time job for amateurs.

Regional Councils throughout Britain must have full powers to co-ordinate all the industrial
and cultural development within their regions. They must have their own financial resources
and power to borrow, especially for physical re-development.

**Power to Plan.** Regional Councils can only be effective if they have the executive power
to plan for their areas. They should be responsible for the use of land, including new towns
and new industries, public transport and hospital building, water supplies, regional resources
and all facilities for leisure and the arts.

An effective regional policy also demands the decentralisation of Government offices and the
nationalised industries, and the appointment of Regional Officers with status equivalent to
the Civil Servant.

**Reform Local Government.** Our system of local government badly needs to become a more
effective instrument of the electors' will. The aldermanic system in England and Wales
should be abolished. All trading arrangements by Councillors with their Council should be
disclosed in the minutes. The resources and functions of smaller local authorities should be
merged to ensure that effective people are employed and efficient services provided at the
most economic price.

### A Radical Approach to Transport

Whether we are private motorists, farmers or industrialists, poor road and rail communications
affect us all, but particularly they strike at the root of exports, regional development,
prices and agricultural expansion. Yet Britain's motorway network is smaller than that
built in Germany thirty years ago, and under the National Plan investment in new roads gets a
pitiful low priority.

A network of motorways can and must be constructed without throwing an additional burden on the
taxpayer. Those who use roads want to see results. The new motorways should be Pay Roads. This
would mean a small charge to the user, but it would be more than balanced by savings in fuel,
delays, and wear and tear.

It would enable public loans to be raised, to build the roads quickly, and would provide a
communication system to galvanise the economy.

British Rail's passenger and freight services must be rationalised, co-ordinated, and
streamlined to meet the real demands of the customer.

In other countries, air shuttle services between cities are profitable. Why not here? Our
provincial airports must be modernised and the number of inter-city services and airports
increased as the regions of Britain are developed.

### Non-Racialist Approach to Immigration

We believe that immigrant entry to this country should be regulated by the availability of
jobs or the possession of skills and not fixed at an arbitrary figure bearing no relation to
vacancies.

The problems connected with immigration have aroused tremendous emotion. No one should
minimise the social problems created. But clearly anyone who reflects upon the work of doctors
and nurses in our hospitals, employees in our transport services, and many other industries,
will recognise the significant contribution which immigrants are making to our society.

We appreciate that integration is not always easy and, in order that the full contribution of
the immigrant may be realised, more steps must be taken at national and local level to provide
facilities for non-English speaking immigrants to improve their knowledge of English and the
British way of life. There must be a closer co-ordination of action at national and local
level to promote racial harmony.

Above all the 'immigrant problem' is a problem of housing. Special subsidies must be
made available to Local Authorities in areas of acute housing shortage.

### Defence Commitments Must be Cut

Too great a proportion of our national wealth is spent in pursuing a world peacekeeping role
that n many areas is no longer realistic and that in any case is far beyond our financial
resources to fulfil effectively.

We appreciate Labour's wish to limit defence expenditure but they envisage no equivalent
cut in commitments as Mr. Mayhew has so honestly pointed out.

**Realistic Priorities.** We reject the idea that Britain still has an independent
peacekeeping role East of Suez. The likelihood of our being required to act independently, in
the defence of India and Pakistan for example, as the Tashkent Agreement demonstrates grows
more remote. We should cut our commitments East of Suez accordingly.

Apart from a temporary obligation to Malaysia our role is as a member of the United Nations
and not as an independent peace-keeping force. We must therefore plan today for a gradual
reduction of our bases in the Far East.

**The Deterrent.** Events have proved that only the Liberals were sincerely opposed to
Britain's possession of an independent nuclear deterrent. Labour in office, despite all
they said in Opposition, have in fact committed us to a nuclear role for the next 10 years.
Thereby Labour have made their task of reducing the arms bill more difficult and encouraged
the spread of nuclear weapons.

However, as we still have certain nuclear weapons under our control, steps must be taken to
place these weapons under international control within the Western Alliance.

**Select Committee on Defence.** During the past 10 years millions of the taxpayers'
money have been wasted on unrealistic commitments and abandoned prestige defence projects.

Never has the need for a Select Committee on Defence (quite apart from the other Parliamentary
reforms which Liberals advocate) been made more obvious than when the Government issued their
defence review on February 22nd. Here were policies, which will virtually affect the defence
of the United Kingdom for the next decade, which had never been discussed in Parliament or by
Parliament until the decisions had been taken and were irrevocable.

Our priority should be to ensure the security of the United Kingdom by retaining an effective
defence force in Western Europe, which, by its very presence, will help to maintain our
political influence in that area.

By cutting our Far East commitments we shall be able to do this and still bring defence
expenditure into reasonable proportion.

**Disarmament.** We must call for a freeze in the development of nuclear weapons, work to
establish nuclear free zones; and press for the admission of China to the UN and disarmament
discussions.

### Modernise the Machinery of Government

The prestige and influence of Parliament has declined. While the British electorate is often
able to participate in the great formative debates of American democracy on television, too
often major issues are discussed by Parliament only after the event.

The decline of Parliament must be arrested by radical reform of its procedures. Standing
Committees on Foreign Affairs, Defence, Economics and Science and Technology must be set up so
that Parliament shares from the beginning in the formulation of policy. Television, the medium
of political debate, must be brought into the House of Commons.

**Streamline Administration.** Labour has set up new Ministries, but this has not led to
quicker decisions or more efficient planning. Indeed it has sometimes led to duplication and
made problems worse. Administration must be streamlined to give value for money. Economics.
Technology, and Social Security must each be the responsibility of a single Minister. The
Housing and Local Government Ministries must be co-ordinated in a Ministry for Regional
Planning and Development, within which Housing and Transport would become subordinated
departments. Detailed planning would be decentralised to the Regional Councils.

The appointment of senior Ministers in charge of broad areas of policy would make possible a
smaller and more efficient cabinet, comparable to Churchill's wartime machine.

Civil Service rules must be made more flexible to allow able people to be brought in from
outside. But the test must be ability not political views. A small unit, set up by the
Treasury, would ensure that recruitment of outsiders is fair and taps the best brains.

**Electoral Reform.** The Electoral system must be reformed to ensure that membership of
the House of Commons represents more accurately the will of the people. Through the
Speaker's Conference we shall continue to press for changes in the method of voting.
A system which allowed over three million voters only nine members of Parliament and which
made it possible for a party with less than half the total vote to become the Government, is
clearly in need of a radical overhaul.

The changes we propose would ensure that every vote cast really counted. and would dispel the
present electoral apathy.

We shall press for votes for young people at 18. Today's youth is responsible and should
be treated as such. At present, until they are 21 young people may not, without their
parents' consent, travel abroad or enter into any legal contract including a mortgage,
nor may they vote.

Full rights should be granted at 18.

## How to Improve Your Way of Life

### Your Home and Your Rates

Millions still live in slums or have no house of their own. Millions more have homes without
lavatories and running water.

To rid the country of slums and shortage and build sufficient dwellings for all families to
have their own homes, we must build at least five million homes within the next 10 years.

This can be done if we tackle the real causes of the problem.

**Industrialised Building Techniques.** System builders' factories run at a fraction
of their capacity. Regional Planning Offices must be set up to co-ordinate these resources,
guide the housing effort and speed the creation of housing consortia among Local Authorities.
Only from large scale housing schemes can the full benefits of industrialised building be
obtained. Building land is available but too little use is made of it.

Labour's Land Commission will do nothing to correct this. It will simply discourage
owners from selling, and the badly devised levy will make land still dearer.

Site value rating. which would collect rates on the value of land instead of buildings, would
encourage owners of vacant or underdeveloped land to sell instead of holding on for a better
market price.

**Homes to Rent Help for Buyers.** Much new housing must go to cure the acute short age of
homes to rent at reasonable prices. Help from subsidies for Council Houses should be
concentrated on those who cannot afford to pay the full economic rent and on Local Authorities
with exceptional rehousing needs, particularly in areas where there has been a large increase
in the immigrant population.

The Government must also encourage more capital to be invested in cheap privately built homes
for rent. Tax reliefs should be given to landlords who build low rent houses, with rent
controlled at a level which gives them a reasonable but not exorbitant return.

The present pattern of tax relief for home buyers, which helps a rich person taking out a
mortgage and not those with little money, should be reversed, possibly by a straight interest
rate subsidy, paid to the Building Societies on all mortgages up to £4,000. A Government
fund should back one hundred per cent mortgages through Local Authorities and Building
Societies.

**Keeping the Rates Down.** A complete change in the rate structure is urgently needed. The
proposed Liberal tax on land values would spread the load and bring down the cost to the
individual ratepayer. The transfer to the Exchequer of a higher proportion of Education and
Road costs would reduce it further. The loss of income by Local Authorities should be
guaranteed by an annual Government grant.

### What Price Security and Health?

Security in old age, security in sickness, security in unemployment. these are our
responsibilities to each other. The great Liberal concept of the Welfare State is threatened
by its increasing failure to match real needs.

A long term plan linking benefits firmly to the general increase in national prosperity would
ensure that all entitled to them share n the growing national wealth.

**Security in Retirement.** Even after the 1965 increase in pensions, many old people are
still forced to live on National Assistance and will be forced to still further as the cost of
living rises; pensions should be raised high enough to make it unnecessary for them to ask for
extra help. A reasonable level for a married couple would be half the level of average national
earnings, rising accordingly.

These pensions should be paid to all old people, including those registered before 1948, the
earnings rule which prevents pensioners from earning a little extra must be abolished.

Employees should be encouraged, through their unions and professional associations, to
supplement the State pension with occupational schemes to a level not less than two-thirds of
previous earnings; and pension rights must be fully transferable. Liberals oppose the idea of
a monopolistic State Socialist Scheme.

At present an employee, as well as paying for his Insurance Stamp, has to contribute with his
employer to the State Graduated Pension Scheme. The same money invested in a private insurance
scheme would yield him a much higher pension. He should have the right to choose where he
invests this extra money.

**Security in Sickness and Unemployment.** Sick pay and unemployment benefits must be
raised to a realistic level. Two thirds of previous earnings should be the rule and full
national average earnings for those undergoing retraining for a new job.

**Security for Wives, Widows and Children.** The present system of family allowances which
mainly benefit the better off, should be abolished. All children including the first should
be eligible under a new system of allowances, graded from approximately £1 to £3
according to age. A widow with dependent children should receive from halt to two-thirds of
her husband's previous earnings, and others should receive sickness, unemployment or
retraining benefits like anyone else. The present tax system discriminates against wives who,
of necessity, have to stay at home, and it should be re-examined.

**How will it all be paid for?** A closer partnership between State and private industry
will help to rationalise the present wasteful contribution structure. A Social Security Tax,
replacing National Insurance stamps and levied on employer (two thirds) and employee (one
third) in proportion to the payroll would rationalise it still further. The tax should be
varied regionally to encourage the creation of more jobs in areas of unemployment. Benefits
on this scale will not be cheap and will take time to achieve, but would ensure maximum value
for money contributed.

**A Better Health Service.** At present, unless you can afford to pay privately. your
chances of obtaining a hospital bed at short notice are small. Even when you de you will find
most of our hospitals crippled by shortages of doctors, nurses and modern facilities. And the
same is true of dentists and GPs.

We must make better use of the qualified people we have by reforming methods of payment and
encouraging, not penalising. married women who wish to return to work.

We must make the Service more efficient by co-ordinating the various branches of health and
welfare under Area Health Boards in which the GP would play a vital part.

Funds must be made available to these Boards to provide better facilities for dentists and
GPs, to improve existing hospital buildings, to build new hospitals and to provide new homes
for old people.

### What are Your Child's Chances?

Although Conservative and Labour Governments have always expressed a desire to increase
educational opportunity, in times of financial difficulty it is always education that they
cut. Instead of setting up a proper building research group for Universities in order to
bring down their costs, the Labour Government has simply imposed a six months' stop on
building for Further and Higher Education thus throwing carefully phased plans into chaos.

We must get our plans and priorities right and then stick to them. Liberals recognise that
education is the most important investment we can make.

**Schools.** Priority in school building must be given to bring our slum primary schools,
urban and rural, up to a decent standard and to prepare for raising the school-leaving age.
This means more generous support for minor works; special grants for depressed areas; and a
willingness by Local Authorities to accept large scale industrial building.

**Eleven Plus.** Liberals regard the abolition of all selection at eleven plus not as a
dogmatic principle, but as a necessary and long overdue reform. We accept the need for
detailed consultation at local level and we realise that not every area in the country can go
'fully comprehensive' immediately, nor do we regard the 'all-through,
purpose-built eleven to nineteen comprehensive' as necessarily the best solution. We are
fighting for reform in the interests of all the children, not in the interests of dogma or
special privilege.

**Higher Education.** We reject the Labour Government's long-term aim of two separate
systems, one autonomous under the University Grants Committee and the other 'public'
under the Local Authorities. The links between Universities and other institutions of higher
education should be drawn closer together by exercising public control through Regional
Councils rather than the 160 different Local Authorities.

If the teacher shortage is to be conquered, there must be new methods of part-time training
and re-training for teachers. In this connection we regret the Government's failure in
this Parliament to establish the University of the Air, proposed originally by the Liberals
and promised in the last Labour Manifesto.

**Teachers.** All professional teachers should be professionally trained and their
salaries, working conditions and pensions improved. This could be done if many
sub-professional jobs in schools were taken over by ancillary staff.

**Cost.** The necessary improvements in our education cannot be made without expenditure of
a higher proportion of the national income. We would oppose any plan to abolish all individual
fee-paying schools although the role of the direct grant, grammar and independent schools must
be re-examined.

### A World We Can Make Better

Liberals support the search for controlled disarmament. Meanwhile Britain must play her part
in creating the conditions which will make the arms race unnecessary.

**Strengthen the United Nations.** The United Nations must be made to work. A permanent UN
force is needed. Liberals want Britain to contribute to it. Any British Government should
support the authority of the UN in settling disputes between States and policing scenes of
international violence.

Liberals recognise that Britain is a European power. We cannot afford to carry
responsibilities everywhere, and the East of Suez policy, persisted in by Labour, is as
dubious politically as it is expensive militarily.

**Join Europe.** To play our part in Europe would not only be of great economic benefit
it would make us a pioneer in the first supranational community where States have agreed to
share some of their sovereignty. Liberals want the Government to declare its intention of
joining the EEC at the earliest opportunity.

Once in Europe, Britain could be an effective Atlantic ally and with our fellow Europeans we
could hope to influence American policy in places like Vietnam. Liberals believe in the late
President Kennedy's concept of the Atlantic partnership between the USA and United
Europe. Such a partnership would wield great power for progress.

**Hunger and Disease - the World's Great Enemies.** Effective aid to the hungry
millions of Asia, Africa and Latin-America means not only direct support but a co-operative
effort by the rich States in the expansion of trade to the developing countries, through the
reduction of tariffs and more credits and investment.

**The Commonwealth.** British aid is naturally largely directed to the Commonwealth
countries. Although the Commonwealth consists of loosely linked and widely different nations
it remains a valuable association bridging the gap between races. It will lose that value and
the gap will widen if Britain compromises with racialism.

**Rhodesia.** The rebel regime in Rhodesia is not only defying the Crown and imposing an
increasingly oppressive dictatorship. It is also poisoning race relations throughout Africa.
Liberals therefore recognise the necessity of continuing pressure until the rebel regime can
be replaced by an authority - representing all Rhodesians, willing to work for eventual
independence based on majority rule and backed by effective British guarantees.

The challenges today are tough, but if they are met in Europe, and in United Nations as in
Rhodesia, Britain can play a great part n the advance to peace.

## Conclusion

### Now it is up to You

Liberals are guided by principle not by doctrine. We are not frightened by change. We welcome
it, provided that it is directed towards the real priorities.

If Britain is going to continue to play a significant part in the world there must be a
radical change of attitude in Government. We can provide this because we are free to plan for
the best interest of all individuals, not just for a few. And that means *your* interests.
We want to see positive action to create a closer partnership between all sections of the
community - State and private enterprise, employer and employee, business and union - Only we
can bring about this partnership.

If you want to see positive actions based on Liberal ideas flourish, you know what you must do.
It is up to you.

**Liberal / SDP / Libdem Manifestos**