Let's try to get this right. The current "Liberal Party" was founded in 1989 and is not the original Liberal Party. The original Liberal Party joined ranks with the Social Democrats to form the LibDems. The 1989 Liberal Party is a relatively recent breakaway group, which has never had any clout. I wish I could say the same about the opportunist LibDems.

Shenanigans over names and name-changes matter not a jot in all this. Leopards can change their spots only by wearing a differently-spotted overcoat, but it's the same old leopard underneath (less kindly, you can put lipstick on Boris Johnson, but he's still a pig). Labour added "New" to its name in the 1990s not because it was a new party but because it wanted to sound thrusting and modern. It worked, for a while at least. But it don't work no more...