This party actually holds nearly 10% of the parliament's seats. Amazing. And here in the U.S., third parties got a combined...1% of the vote.

Then again, that's fine with me - I wasn't very happy about Nader's presence costing Gore the White House.

The Liberal Democrats are the political descendents of the 19th century Liberal Party, and are the heirs of Gladstone. In 1900, the Labour Party was founded, and by 1922 it put the Liberals into the place of a 3rd Party, while Labour and the Tories became the two main parties. It has stayed that way ever since.

The election of Margaret Thatcher polarized British Politics very much, which gave the Liberals an opportunity. In Labour "safe seats" the Liberals became the main vehicle for opposition, and in Tory safe seats, the Liberals became the opposition. Imagine Utah Senate as a safe Tory seat, for example, and Rhode Island as a safe Labour seat - you have to have more centrist opposition if you want a hope of winning.

During the Thatcher years, some of the moderates from Labour started the Social Democratic Party. They practically worked with Labour, and in 1988 the Liberals and Social Democrats formally united, becoming the Liberal Democrats.

With the rise of New Labour and Tony Blair, Labour shifted dramatically to the right. Because of the Labour shift, the Liberal Democrats are now at least arguably the most left-wing of the 3 national parties, without having much changed their positions. They are also of course the only party which opposed the Iraq debacle.

Socially Liberal, Moderately Left Economically (but unfortunately also with a strain of free-market believing idealism that breaks out from time to time), Very Internationalist, Radical on Constitutional Change, Federalist.

(Note: I'm not sure Federalist is the right word to the describe this to a US audience, so I may be confusing you here)

Distressingly Middle-Class. Ferocious to the point of being at least perceived as utterly unprincipled in local election campaigning.  An unfortunate tendency to see compromise as good in itself.  No obvious underlying ideology so therefore seen as wishy-washy, weak, and again lacking in principle.

Haven't been in power nationally for eighty years.  Can't possibily win.  All you people in the US talking up our chances are quite, quite mad.

Being Federalist + Socially Liberal + Internationalist (and thus tending pro-Europe, and pro-immigration) pretty much rules us out.

The perceived mainstream -- i.e. 'Middle England' -- is Centralist + Moderate Social Authoritarianism + Isolationism/Imperialism (and thus tending anti-Europe, and anti-immigration).

Whenever there's a slow news period you'll get a least one editorialist currently disgruntled with their usual choice of either Labour or Tories, bemoaning the fact that they can't bring themselves to vote for us because we're just too enamoured with Europe, and don't seem committed to locking enough people up in prisons, or deporting enough 'bogus asylum seekers' and then going on to fantasise about themselves editorialising us into a landslide if we believed stuff more like them.  Which we don't.

Also our votes aren't geographically concentrated enough for the current electoral system, so at the last election it took on average to win a seat:

• 26030 votes for Labour
  
• 50338 votes for the Conservatives
  
• 92337 votes for the Lib Dems

'The Scottish [I'm in Scotland and it's a Federal Party] Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality, and community and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity'

Hope that gives you some idea, but probably just leaves you more confused than ever :)