The SDP's Disadvantages

In retrospect, do you think the SDP was an error? Or was at that junction in the 80s just an unavoidable schism that had to happen? It's very hard to know. But I don't think another splitter on the left should ever, ever happen. And every time anybody whisper at it, let's say, new parties don't even think about it. If only the remnants of the old Liberal Party would get together with the Labour Party, then we'd be united. So it's a problem all along - and my great-grandfather Gilbert Murray wrote about this.