March 27, 2025

[On David Steel, Leader of the Liberal Party] He’s passed from rising hope to elder statesman without any intervening period whatsoever.

Michael Foot (1913-2010), British Labour politician, in House of Commons, 28 March 1979, Jay p.138

But didn’t Steel enjoy the best parts of any career? Starting off as a “rising hope” could only have been a good thing, right? And then skipping to elder statesmanship? Right again! What miseries of the middle years of a political career would you readily forget?

Steel’s transit was eased by the fact that the Liberal Party—once dominant in the 19th century—was a shadow of its former self by Steel’s time. See George Dangerfield’s The Strange Death of Liberal England (1935), a classic with a lesson for every politician: failure to master divisive issues can be the death of even the most successful parties.