Murnaghan Interview with Sal Brinton, new President of the Liberal Democrats

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well the Liberal Democrats have a new President if you didn’t know.  Tim Farron stepped down in December after four years in the job, that was his term and he’s been replaced by Baroness Brinton or Sal Brinton as she’s known and she joins me now, nodding vigorously there along with Sal Brinton.  Congratulations on the job and a happy new year to you.  First of all we must talk about Paris and your thoughts on what we are seeing there and how important it is that there is major UK political representation on that march.

SAL BRINTON: I’m sure that’s right.  One of the strengths of the marches in Paris and elsewhere in France is how people have come together regardless of their background and regardless of their faith to say that this behaviour by terrorists is unacceptable in our country.  We need to be doing the same here as we did after 2005.  

DM: In terms of what we do here, should tougher laws flow, the rights of the security services as the head of MI5 seemed to be saying, the right of the security services to keep more of an eye on us?  

SAL BRINTON: For specific people where they have suspicions it is absolutely right and  it is interesting that Lord West said this morning that it takes thirty officers to have surveillance just on one potential terrorist.  

DM: But they say it is much easier and much cheaper if you can keep an eye on what they are doing online and on social media.  

SAL BRINTON: And again for people under suspicion, that’s fine but if you try and take everybody’s phone numbers, everyone they are calling on the phone and also emails, it becomes extremely difficult and I think that’s the point where civil liberties rubs up against actual investigation into potential people and we need to be very careful.   

DM: Well let’s talk about your new role as President of the Lib Dems, Sal Brinton, what a year, what a time to take control where you could see your parliamentary representation, well you could see an axe taken to it, do you have big fears about what is going to happen to the Lib Dems in the general election?

SAL BRINTON: I think I’m encouraged by the serious political journalists who are saying don’t expect the Lib Dems to go down as far as their polling is showing at the moment.   

DM: But you do expect it to go down a bit?  

SAL BRINTON: Well who knows, I mean who knows?  What I can say is our MPs and in some of our top seats, the polls that we are doing, the polls that even Lord Ashcroft of the Conservatives are doing, are showing that we are in very strong positions so we have to continue to work on those, that’s obviously got to be the priority and I hope that we will confound the pundits.  

DM: And how much work are you doing on preparations for another coalition and if so who would it be?  You would be part of a negotiating team if it came to that, would you be very careful about where you put your red lines before you go into those discussions?  

SAL BRINTON: Just to be clear, since becoming President I have resigned from that group because my role is to negotiate with the coalition group for what the party is going to do but obviously I have been involved and I will continue to discuss with that team what they are doing as the party federal executive.  

DM: But are you even handed about who you would do business with?  Is it simply whoever is the largest party if it does come to a minority or is it a more natural fit with Labour, the mansion tax?   

SAL BRINTON: It is absolutely vital to be completely even handed and who knows whether it is going to … if there is a coalition and all the pundits at the moment are saying it looks likely, if we try to say it’s got to be X or Y, any party that says that I think the voters will get cross.  It’s the voters right to decide who they want.  The last four and a half years of coalition have gone very smoothly, all the naysayers in 2010 said it would be a disaster, there would be another election within six months.  The one thing that the Liberal Democrats have done in coalition is to show that you can have strong and steady government.  Coalition is actually a contract, it is not a marriage, you have to live with differences.  The key thing about any party including the Lib Dems coming into a coalition is being clear about what we can do and what we can’t do and that is why in 2010 we had four key promises in our manifesto, they were our priorities in government and we have delivered those.

DM: Just how symbolic is your election as President of the Lib Dems particularly in terms of your gender.  You are a party who talks an awful lot about gender equality yet as we see you in government, no female cabinet ministers, very few female MPs, are you making attempts to make sure that changes?

SAL BRINTON: It is absolutely changing.  First in the Presidential election, it was great that three women came forward, an incredibly robust election period, touring round the country meeting thousands of members.  On MPs front, I have been involved, in fact I created the Leadership Programme within the party to ensure training, mentoring and support for women and where eleven retiring MPs are standing down we have got five women already selected and some ethnic minority candidates as well, not just that but in the seats we want to win as well.  So the party has really changed its attitude.  

DM: Yes but some women leave the party and said they wanted nothing more to do with the Lib Dems after the Lord Renard affair, if I could put it that way.  Is he going to have any role to play in the general election campaign?  

SAL BRINTON: I understand not and I think that’s fine, that is up to Nick Clegg and it is up to the people running the actual campaign.  The key thing about the four women leaving is I think it is a tragedy for the party.  I know all four of them and I hope at some point in the future …

DM: You would say come back, we really have changed?  

SAL BRINTON: Absolutely, the party has changed, we’ve had the Morrissey Review, she did a report for us on what we needed to do to change, she reported back to the party just before Christmas saying progress is being made.  Clearly there is more to do but interestingly at the end of that she said actually it would be good if the other political parties reviewed their own procedures and behaviours to make sure that their parties were also fit for the 21st century.

DM: Well Baroness Brinton, Sal Brinton, thank you very much indeed.  The new Lib Dem President there, thank you very much indeed for appearing on Murnaghan for the first time as President.