The Liberal Democrats are positioning themselves as real alternatives to Labour and are hoping to capitalise on the gains they made at the last general election.

They have laid out 10 policies on Iraq, tuition fees and higher taxes on the wealthy which are the party's calling cards as they continue to make the most of splits and realignments in British politics.

As a political philosophy, Liberalism grew out of the political upheaval in 1832, when the power of the mainly aristocratic Whigs was increasingly challenged by "liberals" and "radicals".

A split in the ranks of the Tories brought more converts, and what became known as the Liberal Party emerged in the middle of the 19th Century.

After the election of 1868, William Gladstone formed the government that established the Liberals as a parliamentary force.

Splits in Liberal ranks helped a rapidly-growing Labour Party to become the official opposition before World War Two.

But over the next 40 years, the Liberal vote shrank and by the 1950s, had declined to just 2.5% but they began to rebuild at the grassroots, with a focus on community issues and what became known as "pavement politics".

By winning local council seats, party activists established a power base in cities like Liverpool, and success in local government revitalised their national ambitions.

Although their numbers at Westminster were still small, the close result in the February 1974 election led Prime Minister Edward Heath to invite the Liberals to join a coalition to keep the Conservatives in office. This was rejected by Liberal leader, Jeremy Thorpe under whom the party had increased their support at the general election from 2m to 6m, gaining almost 20% of the popular vote.

The party's new leader, David Steel, was able to capitalise on this growing influence by entering into the "Lib-Lab pact" and for a time supported Jim Callaghan's minority Labour government.

Key players

Four ex-ministers, the "gang of four", left to form the Social Democratic Party. Then the Liberals entered into an Alliance with the SDP, and in 1983, this strategy saw the two parties capture 25% of the popular vote though very few seats.

However, the Liberals never quite achieved the promised breakthrough at the ballot box. In 1988, the Liberals formally merged with the SDP, eventually settling on the name Liberal Democrats.

Under a new leader, Paddy Ashdown, and a disappointing start, the new party began to pick up support during the early 1990s. The Liberal tradition of capturing parliamentary seats at by-elections was successfully revived.

By 1997 the Lib Dems had become the second-largest party in local elections, controlling 55 councils and pushing the Tories into third place.

At the 1997 election, the Lib Dems wooed voters by promises to put a penny on income tax to fund improvements in education, and placed considerable emphasis on environmental issues.

Resources were carefully targeted on winnable - mainly Tory - seats, and the strategy paid off. To the surprise of some commentators, the Lib Dems returned to Westminster with 46 seats.

Under Paddy Ashdown's leadership, the Lib Dems began to co-operate with Labour in developing policies in areas where they had common goals, such as the commitment to devolution. But the relationship appears to have cooled since Charles Kennedy took over as leader, perhaps because of Labour's seeming lack of enthusiasm for reforming the voting system, long the objective of the third party.