David Gregory (NBC) | Name of UK Political Party | FALSE

Let’s start the week with this quick and minor fact-check (more of a correction really):

MR. GREGORY: Madam Secretary, I’d like to spend a couple minutes on some other global hot spots that you’re dealing with. The first one is actually with America’s strong ally in the U.K., in Great Britain. Very interesting election going on. You’ve got three candidates, a resurgent third party in the Social Democrats, televised debates. You know something about those.

Mr. Gregory is incorrect here, the name of the political party of which he speaks is the Liberal Democrats. The Social Democratic Party in the UK with which we assume he is confused existed from 1981-1988, when it merged with the Liberal Democratic Party, which retained that name. The only party by the name of Social Democrats now in the UK is a variation of the original SDP formed by some who eventually left the Liberal Democrats after the merger. The current Liberal Democratic Party, led by Nick Clegg, about which Mr. Gregory was obviously referring has no current relationship with the present day SDP.

Source: The History of the SDP