Comment by justincormack

Both the main parties are in many ways authoritarian, and both have gone along with increased powers for the secret services. The UK has rarely had either a libertarian right (the Tory party are historically a party of the land owners and aristocracy and the broader establishment) or a liberal left (the Labour party was founded by trade unions. The liberalisation on social issues has generally come from social pressure (suffragettes, women working, sexual liberation and gay rights in the 1960s) and the judiciary who sometimes (or juries, eg Lady Chatterly) have acquitted people, changing things.