On This Day
July 07, 1976
David Steel is elected leader of the Liberal Party
beating John Pardoe and at the age of 38, becomes one of the youngest political leaders in British history. His leadership covered the aftermath of Jeremy Thorpe’s downfall, the Lib-Lab Pact and the optimism and upheaval of alliance with the SDP, and concluded in 1988 with the merger of the two parties to create the Liberal Democrats.