Murnaghan 29.04.12 Tim Farron, President Liberal Democrats, on the local elections

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well the Lib Dems may be in government but they are now at risk of losing their status as the third party of politics so with the local elections a few days away what’s the best they can hope for in those polls? Let’s say a very good morning to the Liberal Democrat President, Tim Farron, who joins me now from Cumbria and talking about those local elections Mr Farron, you’ll be well aware that in 2008 you got 23% of the vote, you’ll be very pleased I presume if you get half of that this time.

TIM FARRON: I think we’ll do better than that. Good morning Dermot, I’ll let you into a stunning secret which is that politicians do take notice of opinion polls and so whatever point in the cycle we’re at, of course you look at them and gauge what that means for you. All I can say is that in the last twelve months the Liberal Democrat opinion poll rating has edged up from pretty dreadful to only a bit depressing and we know we’re in a situation we’ve never been in before, at least not since the First World War, a Liberal Democrat government in mid-term and of course you are having to make hideous decisions given the state of the economy and we don’t expect people to be raving about us. Having said that, I’m standing on a windy street in Kendal where the response we’ve been getting is fantastic and I suspect Liberal Democrats will do very, very well in many places around the country on Thursday, certainly significantly better than you expect.

DM: So what’s the most hideous decision you’ve had to make?

TF: What’s that, sorry?

DM: What’s the most hideous decision you talk about, what is that one?

TF: Come on, if you inherit a trillion pound debt then it involves loads of hideous decisions. The Liberal Democrats wouldn’t have chosen to have ended our many generations in the wilderness at this point, when you inherit this kind of a mess and whether you blame Labour or you blame the bankers or blame both of them a bit, I don’t really care who’s to blame, what I do care about is the state of our country, the economy, the appalling mess that we’re in that we have to inherit and early on the Liberal Democrats did the easy stuff, you know, we cancelled Labour’s ID card scheme which saved £15 billion, we did the easy stuff two years ago and now the only way to try and keep us out of the kind of mess that countries like Spain are in with 25% unemployment, 50% youth unemployment, is to make really very, very difficult decisions about saving money across government and in some cases putting up taxes. What we have made sure we’ve done is reduce taxes for those people at the bottom end. The big win for the Liberal Democrats in the budget which has almost been blown over by all the other stuff that’s come out in the last month or so, is of course we’ve taken two million people of the lowest paid out of paying tax altogether and given the 23 million next lowest paid an income tax cut, so amongst all the hideous stuff as you say and as I say, there are some good things as well.

DM: Okay but you, as we’ve heard, are very close to the Liberal Democrat grassroots and we know, you must know, there’s a feeling amongst them that you are getting it in the neck for some of those hideous decisions, the unpopularity of the Conservatives and that in reality you’d be better off out of coalition.

TF: Well look, we had a choice didn’t we two years ago? The arithmetic put us in a position where there was only two things we could have done, we could have sat on our hands, let Cameron form a minority administration, go to the country in October and win an overall majority in which case there would not have been a pension rise this year, there would not have been an income tax cut for the least well off and the millionaires would have had an inheritance tax cut as well as goodness knows how many other probably dreadful things. Or we could do what we did do which was to go into a coalition. There was no Labour/Lib Dem coalition to be had, there weren’t enough MPs and that’s the end of the story, so if you are between a rock and a hard place you choose the softer of the two and we did and although I am quite sure we might have been slightly more popular had we stayed in opposition, the country would have been in an awful lot worse position, so we did the right thing by the country if not the right thing by ourselves.

DM: We’re looking to the future, Mr Farron, as you know and that’s for history but aren’t Liberal Democrats asking if they are being dragged down by the unpopularity particularly of the Conservatives, that they are the ones that are accused of being out of touch and we get kicked for that as well?

TF: Well it’s interesting, in many parts of the country including here in South Lakeland, the Liberal Democrat contest is against the Conservatives and it’s interesting that our popularity, such as it is, is slightly better than it was 12 months ago and the Conservatives is significantly lower than it was 12 months ago, so we are hopeful, certainly in those contests where we are fighting the Conservatives and making some advances this year. In the end we are being grown up and collegiate and working with the only other party we could have done given the arithmetic in government. We are still their opponents, we’re still going to fight them very hard in council seats up and down the country, we’ll do so hopefully to good effect, that’s what you do in a coalition. In Scotland, in Wales, in Northern Ireland and in much of Europe people are used to this, political parties who think very different things and disagree, who work together because that’s the way the arithmetic stacks up. Well that’s what’s happening here and I think slowly but surely we’re getting used to it.

DM: Let’s talk about one of the specific areas where the government is unpopular, it is the current political storm over the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt. Now we’ve always heard from the Liberal Democrats how they have always sucked with a long spoon when it comes to media barons yet it seems that some Conservative politicians did not. Do you think it is sufficient for Mr Hunt to be questioned by the Leveson Inquiry to find out what went on?

TF: Well I think he’s got serious questions to answer and when all’s said and done, the Leveson Inquiry is a separate entity. I think the Ministerial Code is the right way and the right structure against which Mr Hunt should be judged but I am prepared to wait and let him put his side of the story, innocent until proven guilty and all that and I guess you have got to remember as well that there is also a narrative here that Mr Murdoch is probably lashing out and trying to bring some people down with him. Whilst I might not always be tempted to trust the Tories so to speak, I trust Mr Murdoch even less, so I am prepared to let Mr Hunt have his day in court so to speak but he has serious questions to answer.

DM: What do you think of what we’ve heard today from Cardinal Keith O’Brian in Scotland about this government and about how it seems to be penalising poorer people, again how it is out of touch and in particular he is recommending bringing in a financial transaction tax to be redistributed I suppose?

TF: Well I am a big supporter of the financial transaction tax and I think we should make it happen and I think comments and criticisms like that, I am sensitive to them. I find them very difficult because when all’s said and done, we’re in a situation where the people who are suffering the worst at any time austerity are bound to be the least well off and one of the reasons why I was critical of the move to try and get the 50p rate reduced to 45p, even though the Lib Dems made sure that we introduced the Tycoon tax, the increases in stamp duty and the [inaudible due to interference] … is that it looks so dreadful and political leadership is about what it looks like as much as how it is and that’s why I think that the Cardinal’s comments are something which are bound to sting with a lot of us but when all’s said and done, the Lib Dems made sure that the rich are paying more, they are paying five times more as a result of the budget than they gained back because of the 50p rate changing and don’t forget, 23 million people of the lowest paid in this country got a tax cut at the bottom end entirely because of the Liberal Democrats.

DM: And lastly, Mr Farron, before the wind blows our satellite dish over – there was a slight interruption there …

TM: This is normal for Cumbria, Dermot!

DM: Okay, it’s summer there. How embarrassed will you be if you finish behind the UK Independence Party?

TM: I won’t be, you accept the outcome of whatever the electorate tells you. I’m fairly confident that will not happen or even remotely but I put myself forward and we as candidates put ourselves forward at election time and you have got to be big enough to take whatever the outcome is and accept the outcome but my sense is that these are going to be difficult results for us on Thursday but they are not going to be quite as difficult as you are suggesting.

DM: Okay, well braced there against the wind, Tim Farron, Liberal Democrat president, thank you very much indeed in a windy but not too wet yet Cumbria.