sentences:  However, the merger did not happen sooner because of objections from SDP leader David Owen, who resigned later in 1987.Holme was a close advisor to David Steel when he was leader of the Liberal Party, and to his successor, the first Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown.He was made a life peer on 29 May 1990, as Baron Holme of Cheltenham, of Cheltenham in the County of Gloucestershire.