Liberals survive, but with a twist

We've seen timelines on the survival of the Liberal Party in the United Kingdom, most popular is pipisme's excellent TL, but I want to hear your opinions on this:

What are a) the chances of the Liberal surviving and displacing the Conservatives, setting the system as Liberals vs Labour with Conservatives as a small minority and b) what are the implications of this Australianesque switch?
 
To displace the Conservatives they would have to adopt Conservative values, since those are not going away.

If Asquith's government had been unable to vote for war and had fallen and Bonar Law formed a government, fought the war and lost dramatically, then the Conservatives would have been discredited. So of course would have the Liberals, but less so, whilst Labour would have got an even earlier chance than OTL

Lloyd George could try a populist Liberalism that commercial interests jump aboard, whilst Curzon or Chamberlain get to try to pick up the pieces of the shattered Tory party

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Liberal Thoughts...

I think you need to have the Conservatives schism the way the Liberals did in OTL. One possibility is in 1922, when the Conservatives left the Lloyd-George Coalition Government. It's possible to argue that this could all have gone very differently.

Had Chamberlain moved more decisively against Leo Amery, had the Newport by-election been a clear Labour win and had Bonar Law remained on the sidelines, I think it's possible that the Carlton Club meeting on 19th October 1922 could have been a far messier affair.

In acrimony, the Conservative Party splits in November 1922 - Austen Chamberlain leads a group of "Coalition Conservatives" while Stanley Baldwin takes the "Independent Conservatives" into Opposition. The Coalition falls and the General Election of 6th December 1922 produced the most confused result of modern times. Labour won most seats but a coalition of Liberals, Independent Liberals and Coalition Conservatives formed a Government headed by Herbert Asquith. Two years later, the Liberal-Conservative Government won a majority reducing Baldwin's Conservatives to just 40 seats.

I'd also consider the political consequences of a disastrous Falklands Campaign in 1982.
 
b) what are the implications of this Australianesque switch?
Speaking as an Australian, not much difference. The "Liberals" here are conservatives, with not many liberal tendencies. It has a moderate faction in the form of Malcolm Turnbull, but the Conservative party in the UK also has a moderate faction, so I don't think he should be considered a residual "liberal" element.
 
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