Category Archives: Op-eds

It is no surprise that Tim Farron can make a decent speech. It’s what he does. Today, though, he took the tried and tested formula for leaders’ speeches. You know the Rules, where they slag off the other parties, they carefully talk about a few issues considered to be the key interests of the electorate, utter a few platitudes, tell a few jokes and end on a high note.

It’s all a bit contrived sometimes, way too polished,  and leaves the listener wanting a bit of genuine discourse and emotion.

Not today. Liberal Democrats are not known for their deference to their leader. It’s impossible to imagine any of us being as devoted to our leader as SNP activists are to Nicola Sturgeon.  We don’t always do their bidding and we usually answer back if they do something we don’t like. We are definitely not the sort of people who give people massive standing ovations in the middle of their speeches like we did this afternoon because he spoke so passionately, as we would, for the refugees whose plight is pretty much dismissed by the Government. He was angry and he showed it and he took us with him.

And what we’ve had from David Cameron is a careful calibration of what it will take to manage that story, the minimum effort for the maximum headlines.

And a policy which will not directly help a single one of the hundreds of thousands currently on the move across Europe.

It’s pitiful and embarrassing and makes me so angry.

Because I am proud to be British and I am proud of Britain’s values, so when Mr Cameron turns his back on the needy and turns his back on our neighbours.

I want the world to know, he does not speak for me, he does not speak for us, he does not speak for Britain.