Caron Lindsay

Let’s say no to a Coronation of Chaos

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 3rd May 2017 - 9:38 pm

Strong and stable leadership is not always a good thing. I mean, the government of the former soviet union was pretty strong, and for decades, stable. And May’s press team is not exactly behaving like it thinks it is in a democracy.

Seriously, though, what do we expect of our Prime Minister when approaching a negotiation of such complexity as managing Brexit so that we ordinary people don’t end up suffering dire consequences for decades? How should she and her ministers behave as we try to rebuild trading relationships with the world from scratch, as we find ourselves isolated and disadvantaged. Frankly, standing in the middle of Downing Street and whining that those nasty Europeans are out to get us is about as irresponsible as it gets.

That is just window dressing at the end of the day. Ramping up tensions ahead of negotiations with cavalier disregard is one thing. Once they get in the room, if there are sufficient grown-ups around, this mess can be cleared up. There is a bigger worry, though. Our lot seem to be approaching this without a realistic strategy of what they can achieve.

I was interested in this translation of the FAZ story about the Juncker/May dinner. Basically, our government seems to be saying “we’ll pretend to leave, and pay you nothing but we won’t really leave and it’ll all be fine.’

The article is worth reading in full, but here is one of the key points. Theresa May apparently wants Brexit to be a bit like the Boris having and eating cake scenario:

Protocol 36 is an addition to the Lisbon Treaty, the last of the great reforms of the European contracts. It summarises various special provisions, on of which concerns the Brits. They had reserved the right to opt out of all domestic and legal policies. Back then, this agreement was sold as a defence of British sovereignty. However, London had immediately opted back in to two thirds of the fifty affected acts of law — out of pure self-interest. This had been kept fairly quiet. May imagined future relationships with the EU in a similar way. While she wanted Britain to make an official hard cut she wanted the country to still be included in matters of its own interest.

Juncker saw two options now — either remain silent and thereby possibly support May’s illusions, or to hit back at her. He decided for the latter.

That’s bad enough on its own, but our lot are playing silly brats over the money as well:

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The Voice

WATCH: The party’s new video

By The Voice | Wed 3rd May 2017 - 8:08 pm

It’s certainly short and sweet.

What do you think?

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Caron Lindsay

Rennie: Rape clause shows that the Tory mask has slipped & nasty party is nastier than ever

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 3rd May 2017 - 2:22 pm

For the last few years, Ruth Davidson has painted herself as the acceptable face of the Tory Party. This time last year, she was an ardent Remainer willing to call out her London colleagues on human rights and the like. Now, she’s a hard brexiteer who is prepared to trivialise the effects of the dreadful family cap which prevents families claiming benefits or tax credits for more than two children – unless they can prove to the satisfaction of a civil servant that a third or subsequent child was conceived by rape.

To do that, women have to complete this shocking form and in the process disclose to a third party that they have been raped. This is information that they may never have shared with someone. What gets me is that someone had to draw up that form. The draft must have gone through various people who all signed it off? It seems incredible that nobody actually thought about the effect on the person filling it in. And what happens if some decision maker at the Department of Work and Pensions decides that somehow they aren’t eligible after all? Has anyone thought this through?

Anyway, tonight, Ruth Davidson made light of all of this, saying that all women had to do was “tick a box.”

Ruth Davidson is wrong to make out that  completing this form is a trauma free exercise. Imagine how you would feel writing down your child’s name & signing that their conception was non consensual. What would be going through your mind?

The Tories are bureaucratising the unacceptable and Ruth should be calling her colleagues out on it, not defending their actions.

Willie Rennie, who took part in the demonstration against the rape clause at Holyrood last week, slammed Davidson’s cavalier comments:

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Rob May

Jo Swinson interview: part 3 – campaigns, social media and a political hero

By Rob May | Wed 3rd May 2017 - 12:48 pm

In yesterday’s second part of the interview, Jo talked about how she entered politics and, subsequently, Westminster. Today, the conversation turns to Easter eggs and body image… The first part of the interview can be found here.

Throughout your time in office, one of your bugbears appears to be excessive Easter egg packaging. Seeing as Easter is upon us, I thought it would be an apt topic to discuss. At face value, this doesn’t seem a particularly important issue, but when you realise that the excessive packaging causes thousands of tons of waste each year, it clearly is a reasonable concern. You started campaigning on this in 2007 and have even named-and-shamed the main culprits. Has the situation improved in ten years?

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Douglas Oliver

Fight where we can win

By Douglas Oliver | Wed 3rd May 2017 - 11:12 am

Canvassing on the doorstep in South London over the weekend, one thing was clear: despite the excitement of a “Lib Dem fightback” this will be a tough election for the party, and we must fight hard to beat the Tories and Labour where we can win on 8th June.

In Carshalton, where I canvassed for Tom Brake MP on Saturday, it is clear he is being ruthlessly targeted by the Tory Party. Next door the Sutton Tory MP Paul Scully – who has spent two years agitating for Brexit since beating us – is being buttressed by a similar CCHQ campaign, despite a strong national and local campaign on Brexit and the NHS led by our candidate Amna Ahmad. Meanwhile, in places like Bermondsey and Southwark, Labour are not, yet, falling away easily.
It is crucial we are more than equal to the Tory and Labour task and focus our fire on those seats where we remain strong, if we are to make a mark in Westminster after 8th June.

Whilst we rightly snigger at the vacuity of the Tories “Coalition Chaos”, there is no denying that it has some resonance around the country, and we must fight fire with fire. It is up to us to make the case for a return to the pragmatic politics which existed before 2015 – and be as unsentimental as the Tories and Labour about where we make our political case.

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Federal Policy Committee discusses the General Election Manifesto

By Geoff Payne | Wed 3rd May 2017 - 9:50 am

This report relates to the meeting of the Federal Policy Committee which took place on 2nd May 2017, some 20 years to the day since the Labour landslide General Election victory in 1997.

This meeting commenced at 2pm and went on well past 10pm. The reason for the length of that meeting was that the only item on its agenda was to agree our manifesto for the 2017 General Election.

I am afraid that there is very little that I can say about the contents of the manifesto or the work that underpinned it for reasons that I am sure people will understand.

Comments from the Leader

Tim Farron MP made some introductory remarks about the importance of our manifesto, and the vigour with which we are fighting this campaign.

He stated that we are going to need a very distinctive manifesto in order to differentiate ourselves from the other parties. He said that the message that will come through in the introduction will be different from that in previous manifestos but it is one that has solid evidence behind it. You will see what I mean when you read it.

Campaign Update

Shaun Roberts, the Director of Campaigns, went through the campaign as it stands.

He indicated that we are facing a number of battlegrounds and set out in detail the challenges that we are facing in each one. He said that our present election message is working where it is heard. The challenge is to ensure that it is heard as widely as it can be. The message from us has to be that we are a strong opposition.

Shaun went though some of the groups of voters that we would want to get back. We used to get significant numbers of voters from public sector workers because our policies, underpinned by our strong beliefs, were to stand up for our public services. Our policies as they stand should go a long way towards attracting that group of voters back.

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The Voice

Another membership milestone: Lib Dem membership reaches record high on eve of local elections

By The Voice | Wed 3rd May 2017 - 8:12 am

The Liberal Democrats have reached their highest ever membership!

We’ve just gone over the high watermark of 101,768 set in 1994.

The landmark comes as Tim Farron heads to Oxford to rally activists for the party’s final push of the local election campaign.

More than 14,000 new members have joined the Liberal Democrats in the two weeks since the General Election was called. More than 50,000 members have joined since last year’s European referendum and nearly 70,000 since the 2015 General Election.

Tim Farron pledged to build the party to 100,000 members by the end of the parliament as a key pledge during his 2015 leadership campaign – but at that point everyone expected the end of the parliament to be 2020.

Tim said:

We are going into these local elections bigger than ever before, with a clear message and a growing sense of momentum.

In many of the counties where these elections are taking place it is the Liberal Democrats who are the main challengers to the Conservatives. Liberal Democrat councillors are the strong opposition to the Conservatives across the country, standing up to them on cuts to schools and elderly care.

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Mark Valladares

Yesterday’s Press Releases in review – 2 May 2017

By Mark Valladares | Wed 3rd May 2017 - 6:45 am

Interestingly, yesterday’s post triggered quite a lot of comments. Not necessarily related to the press releases, but there you go. Feel free to comment about anything covered here, or not, as you wish.

Here are some of the press releases not covered elsewhere on our pages that were issued yesterday…

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The Voice

WATCH: Nick Clegg’s speech on Brexit

By The Voice | Tue 2nd May 2017 - 10:11 pm

Nick Clegg gave his first major speech on Brexit of the election campaign today. You can watch it below. The full text follows:

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Callum Robertson

No Progressive Alliance please, we’re Liberals!

By Callum Robertson | Tue 2nd May 2017 - 2:12 pm

Recently there has been much talk of abandoning our principles and going in with the Greens and the Labour Party. Now my stance on this doesn’t come from some sort of archetypal hatred of them. In fact many of my friends belong to the Labour and Green movements. I have fond memories of standing side by side in Peterborough handing out leaflets and speaking to people about why we thought it was best to remain. I still keep cordial relations with the Greens and the Labour moderates. We campaign for Open Britain together and there is a lot to be said for cross party cooperation in this sense. Logic dictates when you believe in a common cause you should work as a team to achieve this.

However, the common cause on Europe is not a plan for government. We radically differ on policy with the Greens with regards to economic policy. With Labour, our Social Democratic wing undoubtedly has significant overlaps with the Labour moderate wing. However for every similarity there is a difference. I cannot honestly stand for election on a manifesto I disagree with, this is what would happen with the so called progressive alliance.

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Rob May

Jo Swinson interview: part 2 – first steps in politics and what it’s like to be a young woman at Westminster

By Rob May | Tue 2nd May 2017 - 12:54 pm

In yesterday’s first part of the interview, Jo spoke of how she entered politics and why. In today’s excerpt, she talks about what it is like to be a young woman in politics and how she dealt with it….

TIME IN POLITICS

From watching you on YouTube and from sitting opposite you here listening to you speak, you come across as very confident and it’s difficult to imagine you suffer from nerves. When you were 21 years old and stood for parliament, were you nervous? And do you still get nervous nowadays?

Of course. I was nervous going up

…

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Joe Zammit-Lucia

Can Brexit help us do well in the election?

By Joe Zammit-Lucia | Tue 2nd May 2017 - 11:03 am

Opposition to a cliff-edge Brexit will be one of the defining messages for our party in the upcoming election. Will it work?

It can – but it needs to be handled well.

That is the message from a recent analysis that we have conducted looking at over 10 million Brexit-related tweets between November and April. Over that period, pro-Brexiteers have been overwhelmingly more successful than those who are opposing Brexit or opposing a hard Brexit. Why?

The pro-Brexiteers use effective, emotive language while anti-Brexiteers have a fondness for complex, rational arguments that have little resonance. Pro-Brexiteers are much more active on social …

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John King

Remainers must not be silenced

By John King | Tue 2nd May 2017 - 9:45 am

In the aftermath of the referendum, the Remain viewpoint has been a still small voice. Too still and too small. There are a couple of reasons for this, the first to do with the character of Remainers and the second with how they’ve been treated.

Remainers on the whole are civilised people, reflective and self critical, inclined to see the other person’s point of view. They are not given to elbowing their way to the front of the bar shouting their order for a drink; they leave that to the Nigel Farages of …

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NewsHound

Yesterday’s Press Releases in review: 1 May 2017

By NewsHound | Tue 2nd May 2017 - 8:07 am

It may have been a Bank Holiday, but the Press Team never rest. Here are some of the releases they sent out yesterday that aren’t covered elsewhere in our pages;

Farron: FAZ report on May’s Juncker dinner show this Govt has no clue on Brexit

According to damning reports in the German press on Theresa May’s dinner with Juncker last week, EU sources believe there is now more than 50% chance of a disorderly Brexit, while May has made clear to the European Commission she fully expects to be re-elected as Prime Minister.

Liberal Democrat Leader Tim Farron commented:

These reports blow a

…

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Mark Valladares

Welcome to my day: 2 May 2017

By Mark Valladares | Tue 2nd May 2017 - 7:45 am

Hello, hello, can you hear me? Is this thing working?

* blows dust off keyboard *

Yes, all seems to be well enough.

As you might expect, the Liberal Democrat Voice team are somewhat busy at the moment, what with local elections this week, and a General Election to come thereafter, in which most of the regulars have key roles in various campaigns. And so I thought that I ought to step out of retirement to lend a hand. Many of our newer readers will not know who I am, so a quick (re-)introduction is …

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The Voice

Clegg: Poor, insecure and vulnerable already paying price of Theresa May’s hard brexit

By The Voice | Tue 2nd May 2017 - 12:01 am

Nick Clegg is to make his first major intervention of the election campaign this afternoon in a speech at the National Liberal Club.
The former Deputy Prime Minister will criticise Theresa May for her pursuit of a hard Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn for his inept opposition.

He will point to analysis showing the average UK household is set to be £500 worse off this year than it was in 2016, and stress that only the Liberal Democrats are capable of providing this Conservative government with the opposition the country desperately needs.

He  is expected to say:

My argument today is simple: Our country cannot thrive without a strong economy. We can’t have a strong economy and a hard Brexit.

Theresa May alone is responsible for pursuing this course. It is already hurting the very people who need most help in society. So the question in this election is this: who will hold Theresa May accountable for the economic harm she will inflict on Britain?

Judging by the reports of last week’s lunch between Jean-Claude Junker and the Prime Minister, the Conservatives are once again proving to be as incompetent in doing the right thing for the country as they are ruthless in chasing votes.

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Caron Lindsay

Wera Hobhouse to fight Bath for the Lib Dems

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 1st May 2017 - 9:19 pm

Wera Hobhouse has been selected to fight Bath for the Liberal Democrats.

The candidate selected last year, Jay Risbridger, stepped down last week.

The BBC has the story:

Wera Hobhouse was selected by members during a lunchtime meeting at Bath City Football Club,

The seat is currently held by the Conservative MP Ben Howlett but was previously a Lib Dem stronghold, held by Don Foster for 23 years.

The original prospective parliamentary candidate, Jay Risbridger, picked last autumn, stood down last week due to family and work commitments.

Paul Strasburger, from the Lib Dems’s campaign in Bath, said: “It’s important to the party nationally because it’s a very winnable seat, and therefore it’s a central part of our desire to stop a Tory landslide.”

The Bath Chronicle quotes former Bristol West MP Stephen Williams:

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Caron Lindsay

That May/Juncker dinner leak – what does it all mean and what has Tim Farron been saying about it?

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 1st May 2017 - 8:19 pm

So the May and Juncker dinner leak is all over the papers. “Brussels gossip” says the Prime Minister. What she didn’t say was that it was untrue.

A very useful summary of the main points appears here on The Economist’s Jeremy Cliffe’s Twitter feed. In essence, it sounds as though the Prime Minister has no clue about how Brexit is going to work. They don’t even seem to understand the basics. That already puts our country at a significant disadvantage. If you are going to have to go into a negotiation like this, it helps if you understand what you are doing.

When the story first emerged, Tim Farron had this to say:

These reports have blown a massive hole in the Conservative Party’s arguments.

It’s clear this government has no clue and is taking the country towards a disastrous hard Brexit.

Theresa May chose a divisive hard Brexit, with Labour’s help, and now has no idea what to do next.

This election offers us a chance to change the direction of our country, keep Britain in the single market and give the people the final say over what happens next.

After May had spoken this afternoon, he added:

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Rob May

Jo Swinson interview: part 1 – an introduction and life before politics

By Rob May | Mon 1st May 2017 - 6:15 pm

Prior to this interview, I obviously knew who Jo Swinson was and was aware of some of the issues she has championed over her 10 years in office but, while researching her, I was surprised to find that a relatively young politician had been actively involved in so many campaigns. Jo’s avid use of social media combined with her willingness to openly and energetically support these causes has clearly enhanced her profile. Jo was one of the first politicians to take new and modem forms of technology seriously. She joined Twitter shortly after it went live and a simple YouTube …

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Olly Wehring

Battle Bus debuts in Surbiton

By Olly Wehring | Mon 1st May 2017 - 2:01 pm

Around 300 people braved the drizzle this morning in Surbiton, west London, to welcome the Liberal Democrat battle bus as it embarks on a tour of the country ahead of next month’s election.

Party leader Tim Farron was joined by Sarah Olney, MP for nearby Richmond Park & North Kingston, along with former cabinet ministers and parliamentary candidates Vince Cable and Ed Davey. The pair are standing in Twickenham and Kingston & Surbiton constituencies, respectively.

Addressing the crowd, Tim Farron acknowledged the “Lake District-style weather”, before attacking both the Conservatives and Labour.

The worst governments are the ones with the weakest oppositions. There is a vacancy for an opposition in this country, and the Liberal Democrats are here to fill it.

This will not be a coronation. This will be a contest.

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Paul Pettinger

A Lib Dem route to victory: a case for a Progressive Alliance

By Paul Pettinger | Mon 1st May 2017 - 12:26 pm

The recent Richmond Park by-election was a huge victory for Liberal Democrats, further boosting our credibility and standing in the country with voters and the media. But it was also a great success for Progressive Alliance campaigners, who supported Sarah Olney’s excellent campaign.

The decision by the Green Party to stand down and endorse us, along with calls from a group of leading Labour figures for Labour to do the same, helped to recreate the conditions where we could win back the seat by leading a non-conservative bloc of voters to victory. These moves – by Labour figures and the Greens – were made in support of progressives in different parties organising together more generally.

The cross-party pressure group, Compass, is currently publishing a series of essays from members who would like to see a Progressive Alliance from each of the different progressive parties. Written before the announcement of the Election, I’ve set out some of my thoughts from the perspective of a Liberal Democrat about why we need a Progressive Alliance, which are published on the Compass site today. Drawing upon psephology, demography and historical precedent, I believe a Progressive Alliance presents by far our best route to implement electoral reform at Westminster, our best chance to prevent a hard Brexit, and best opportunity for liberals to sustain influence over the long term. I’ve not reproduced many arguments here, and hope you will take some time to have a look, when you take a break from the campaign trail.

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Caron Lindsay

What were you doing 20 years ago today?

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 1st May 2017 - 8:55 am

Some of you reading this won’t even have been born in 1997, or have been too young to take part in the General Election that year.

20 years ago today was a blistering hot day in Chesterfield. I was knocking up all over town.

I had spent most of the campaign doing front of house in our brilliant little office which was happily situated right next door to a pretty decent Italian restaurant. Several times we ordered food from them and they brought it across on proper plates, with real cutlery. A total luxury for an election office.

We had been working hard to get Tony Rogers elected in Chesterfield. Over the previous few years, we had really been challenging the local Labour hegemony, winning by-election after by-election. While New Labour were very much ahead in the polls, it was very much Old Labour who ran the Derbyshire town.

It was such brilliant fun. Very busy, of course. Paul Holmes as agent is never one to under-estimate anyone’s capacity for work. Legend had it that he took envelopes to stuff to a woman in the early stages of labour. He says he can’t remember doing such a thing, but nobody who knows him seems to have much trouble believing it. There was one time during the European campaign in 1994 when he decided that sorting out a million election addresses wasn’t enough work for us to do and he got us all stuffing envelopes for a by-election in Bradford South too.

He certainly liked to challenge us. You’d be in the middle of doing something and he’d come along with some mailing that needed to go out by the last posting time which was impossibly close. And we always stepped up and did it. We called him lots of names in the process, always to his face and he bore that with good humour.

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Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #478

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 30th April 2017 - 9:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 478th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere … Featuring the five most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (23-29 April, 2017), together with a hand-picked seven you might otherwise have missed.

Don’t forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.

As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:

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NewsHound

Fun on the Campaign Trail #2: “Smell my spaniel”

By NewsHound | Sun 30th April 2017 - 6:27 pm

Paul has already shown us the pictures of Bonnie, the gorgeous cockapoo who delighted everyone on Tim Farron’s visit to Cambridge the other day.

But Bonnie had a starring role in one of the funniest events of the week:

From ITV

Video footage showed Mr Farron approaching the dog, which was wearing a yellow Liberal Democrat rosette, before saying: “Smell my spaniel”.

Mr Farron owns a black and white springer spaniel called Jasper, and often posts pictures on social media of the two of them together.

It appears Mr Farron may have been suggesting that the campaigner’s dog could smell Jasper’s scent on

…

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The Voice

LDV’s Sunday Best: our 7 most-read articles this week

By The Voice | Sun 30th April 2017 - 4:55 pm

7 bestMany thanks to the 20,600  visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…

Daisy Benson stands aside as Yeovil candidate (20 comments) by Newshound

David Ward removed as a candidate (55 comments) by The Voice

Lib Dem candidate won’t stand against the Speaker after all (42 comments) by The Voice

The “hit list” of pro EU Tory MPs the Lib Dems are targeting in Brexit purge – Telegraph (28 comments) by Paul Walter

Encouraging poll news for the Liberal Democrats (26 comments) by Caron Lindsay

Could Rachel Johnson stand as a candidate for the Liberal Democrats? (42 comments)  by Caron Lindsay

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News Meerkat

Fun on the campaign trail #1: Willie Rennie and Jo Swinson as Di Caprio and Winslet – or Sergei and Aleksandr

By News Meerkat | Sun 30th April 2017 - 3:25 pm

Back in 2005, there was a very dignified photo-op during the election campaign that had then Scottish Lib Dem Leader and Jo Swinson during her first election on a canal barge. It was played time and time again on the news.

Yesterday, Willie Rennie and Jo Swinson launched her campaign to win back East Dunbartonshire on a boat in Kirkintilloch.

The image from that is a bit more fun and perhaps not quite as classy as the 2005 event.

That made it into the Times Red Box briefing.

And there are signs that the Scottish Lib Dem press office are rivalling their London counterparts in the sass department.

Here’s that Meerkat Moment.

And here’s the video that Willie and Jo made to launch her campaign:

At the same time, Theresa May was in Scotland at on of her tightly controlled events where she’s allegedly meeting ordinary people so that she doesn’t need to subject herself to the scrutiny of millions on a tv debate. Willie’s had this to say about her visit:

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: China at the crossroads

By Tom Arms | Sun 30th April 2017 - 1:55 pm

China is at a political crossroads with a nuclear-tipped Mack truck driven by a suicidal North Korean juvenile threatening to plough into its side with disastrous consequences for Beijing and the rest of the world,

President Xi Jinping can avoid the crash. It is not inevitable. But to do so requires a major change of direction in Chinese foreign policy—with some help from America

Korea’s 38th Parallel is the Asian relic of the Cold War. It is also a highly visible and symbolic border which determines whether China or the United States is the major 21st century power in the Asia-Pacific region.

It was China that saved North Korea from defeat at the hands of the American-led UN forces in the early 1950s. It was China that signed a mutual defence treaty with North Korea in 1961 and it is China that provides the food and energy that enables the hereditary communist country to continue oppressing its 25 million citizens and threatening the world with nuclear holocaust.

Why? Not because of any love for Kim Jong-un or his ancestors or because North Korea is communist.

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The Voice

Farron to Blair’s 1997 voters: Things can only get better with the Lib Dems

By The Voice | Sun 30th April 2017 - 12:30 pm

On the eve of the 20th anniversary (how on earth did that happen?) of Tony Blair’s first election victory in 1997, Tim Farron has made an appeal to those who voted for Blair to choose the Liberal Democrats this time, saying that the Blair anthem of old now applies to the Lib Dems:

1997 shows what can happen when a party is prepared to make a broad appeal to change Britain’s future for the better.  My message on the eve of that anniversary is this: ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ – but this time with the Liberal Democrats. Back us and change Britain’s future.

I am urging those voters, those people who backed Labour in 1997, to come and vote for the Liberal Democrats.

Labour have comprehensively failed to stand up for our schools, hospitals and our place in the world.

They have become too weak, and too divided, to stand up for those who need it most.

Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile.

This election is a chance to change the direction of our country, those people who crossed the Labour box twenty years ago should vote for the Liberal Democrats.

It’s interesting that he didn’t even explicitly mention Brexit once – one of the few press releases where it is omitted. The people who gave Blair power would have voted overwhelmingly to Remain.

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Caron Lindsay

Farron on Marr: Lib Dems will be the strong opposition that Britain so desperately needs

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 30th April 2017 - 11:37 am

Tim Farron has been on the Andrew Marr Show this morning. Theresa May was on as well, although not at the same time. It was like Durham in 1992 all over again.

He set out his pitch to be the strong opposition to Theresa May’s Government:

And he explained why people should spoil May’s coronation by turning to the Liberal Democrats

He appealed to young people to vote for the Lib Dems to avoid a hard Brexit that could damage us for generations to come.

He came across very well and got in our campaign messages along the theme of the only way to avoid a hard Brexit is to vote for the Liberal Democrats.

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Paul Walter

Slideshow: Bonnie the Lib Dem cockapoo captures the spotlight in Cambridge

By Paul Walter | Sun 30th April 2017 - 10:30 am
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