I am just this minute in from a night’s canvassing and haven’t yet watched Tim Farron’s interview with Andrew Neil.
I will do so in a bit and add in some commentary here but you may wish to discuss it in the meantime.
It’s available on iPlayer here if you haven’t seen it either.
So, I’m going to watch it and comment as I go.
Neil starts provocatively, stating that we wanted to have our laws made in Brussels and have no control of our borders. Tim wisely immediately responded by saying that it was important that we give the people the final say on the Brexit deal.
If Theresa May is making a choice about the most extreme choice of Brexit, people should have the say over it, he said.
He talked about Theresa May ripping up our free trade deal – but Andrew Neil kept interrupting him and not letting him answer.
He says that the best deal is one that leaves us in the single market. Neil says that staying in the single market is not leaving the EU – Tim reminded us that Farage and co had spent years telling us we could be like Norway.
He also made the point that the French could not exclude our exports of beef and lamb after foot and mouth outbreak in 2001. He says the the single market keeps prices low and is important for jobs.
The conversation then moved on to the idea of Tim being a Eurosceptic. Tim said it was important to challenge power at every level and its possible to do that and still believe in the European ideal.
There then followed a really awful section where every time Tim tried to speak, Neil interrupted him. It was not pretty to watch. Neil had put to Tim that we would campaign to remain if we got a referendum on the deal. Tim, I feel, should have just said straight up. “You bet we would” and then go on to explain that any deal would be worse for us than we currently have. He should have been pretty provocative and said that he spoke for all the people of this country who would suffer from a badly executed Brexit. He spoke not just for the 48% who voted to Remain whose wishes are being totally disrespected by the Government, but also those who voted Leave on the basis of a misleading campaign, thinking that they were getting £350 million a week for the NHS.
I’m maybe being a bit harsh because it’s one thing sitting here on my sofa and quite another being in that studio with someone who has no interest in making anyone look good. I have long worried that our line on Brexit is trying to keep too many people on board. It’s too carefully crafted. We should just say what the party actually wants – and that is to campaign full throttle against Brexit. It’s an honourable position that we should proudly and boldly advance.
It’s easy to be a sofa strategist, but I wonder where we would now be if we had said on the day the election was called something like: “If I walk into Downing Street as PM on 9th June, the political earthquake that would have brought that about would entirely justify revoking Article 50 and that would be my first act.” If we had taken that more robust line, we may well have lost some people along the way – but we could also have gained.
I am being too hard here because it is pretty darned audacious to go out on a limb against the power of the right wing media. We have been doing that pretty constantly for the past year if not longer. All I’m saying is that if we’d gone a step further, we might have seriously grabbed the agenda. Nobody would have ignored a bold statement like that.
Anyway, back to the interview. The subject moved on to surveillance. Tim argued against knee jerk responses which took away the freedoms of innocent people, as you would expect a Liberal to do. He made the point that we have plenty powers – but the government has not properly put in place the resources to enable the police to do their job. He cited the example of the bomber’s family having raised concerns about him five times but nothing was done.
He also explained the very reasonable plan to tell people that they had been under surveillance if they had been found innocent under much pressure from Neil who sought to make it sound as if they would be told while they were being watched, which is ridiculous.
Neil then tried to have the tuition fees argument again. Tim talked about our education priorities = reversing cuts in schools budget and maintenance grants.
Neil was rude, condescending and aggressive all the way through. He spoke to Tim as if he were a headmaster in a private school and Tim was a first year. The best interviews are where there is a genuine attempt to enlighten the viewer and it’s a serious conversation. On this point, Neil failed. To be honest, he looked like an aggressor rather than an interlocutor from the start. He let his obvious dislike for his interviewee get in the way.
Tim did very well to make some very good, liberal points on counter-terrorism, Brexit, social care, education and our penny on tax for health. He missed a couple of opportunities to make points more succinctly but that’s hardly surprising given Neil’s appalling behaviour.
I have to say, though, that I wonder what they were saying to each other when the interview was over and the credits were running.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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Raising a flap about letterboxes
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87 Comments
Let’s move on shall we.
WTAF?
I am trying not to be too biased here. He was really harsh on Theresa May but he was actively rude to Tim there???? Maybe it’s easier to make Theresa May look stupid.
I think Tim will, in the fullness of time, realise that it is not a good idea to talk that much over the interviewer. Andrew Neill is not the devil incarnate. Yes, Tim appeared brave, but it was “brave” in the Humphrey Appleby “Very brave, minister” sense.
I thought this was on Sunday, but just caught the last couple of minutes. Neil was his usual rude and aggressive self.
I thought Tim kept his cool very well in the face of appalling rudeness. Andrew Neil interrupts Tim Farron then when Tim keeps talking accuses him of not playing the interview game! It is the actions of a bully.
I must have been watching a different interview. Maybe he is suffering from the strain of this ghastly election campaign.
With the Lib Dems fighting for a second referendum and for the UK to stay in the single market, it wasn’t hard to guess the questions Neil would come up with. He’s been asking remainer politicians the same questions for the past year. For whatever reason Tim just didn’t look prepared and then made matters worse by waffling.
Was Andrew ruder to Tim than he was to Theresa, Jeremy and Paul? Did he let them finish their first answer but not let Tim do it?
I am thinking about complaining to the BBC.
I thought Tim did well last night in the leaders debate. Tonight he wasn’t at his best. He did OK in the second half but the first half was pretty hard to watch. Neil was a pompous arrogant git (as per usual) and Tim didn’t deal with it well. However, I genuinely believe that these things are only really watched by people like us so I don’t think it’ll matter much.
Agree that Tim waffled a bit at the start but I did enjoy Andrew Neil getting more and more rattled as the interview went on and I thought Tim finished strongly.
I thought Farron did extremely well compared to May and Corbyn. Neil was dreadful, much as Paxman was interviewing Corbyn the other day. Using assertions of opinions as questions and then interrupting the subject after 5 seconds merely makes the interviewer look stupid
He did not seem able to give a straight answer to any question. It was appalling and embarrassing. I wish I had listened to the Archers as usual. We have 7 more days of this. To think I had hoped to be on holiday this week.
Andrew Neil has used the technique in all these party leader interviews of formulating his questions in a rather offensive “Have you stopped beating your wife” fashion and then rapidly interrupting and accusing his interlocutor of failing to answer his precise question. In this particular interview there could be no meeting of minds because Neil, the media in general and indeed the Labour leadership have swallowed the ludicrous assertion by May and Davis that it is possible for the UK be offered a deal with all the benefits currently secured by EU membership but without any of the costs and obligations which will continue to be imposed on all the 27 EU members. This is clearly cloud cuckoo land and only the Lib Dems seem to realise this and have the honesty to say it.
It was not the greatest performance I have seen from Farron but he was obviously determined not to simply give in to Andrew Neil’s bullying.
Oh dear. More like bumper cars in a fairground than a car crash. Wonder what the turn off numbers were.
I’m a floating voter. I watched that interview out of genuine interest and with no preconceptions. Tim Farron was appalling. The ultimate question-dodging, flannelling politician. Wouldn’t give straight answers to straight questions. Went endlessly off into pointless, lengthy, irrelevant, and frankly tedious digressions. Refused to state what is obvious about the LibDem position on any second referendum. Why? Did that massively irritating thing of saying it’s not a second referendum because the question is going to be different from the first referendum. Does anyone apart from LibDems think it’s anything other than a second referendum, and do they care what number it is anyway? Oh, and someone tell him to stop talking about his family too. It doesn’t help.
Perhaps the best thing about the interview is that nobody seems to have noticed it.
This looked unlikely to change anybody’s mind about anything. Tim Farron’s supporters will blame Andrew Neill, but it seemed that Tim lacked any subtlety when answering the questions he wished had been asked instead of the ones that were: Nick Clegg and others seem much better at acknowledging a question before answering a different one! This was made worse by constantly talking over Neill which I don’t think was successful. At least Farron remained calm but, especially combined with a tendency to waffle and to start an answer by going off at a tangent, it meant that for much of the time he seemed to struggle to make his points.
It did strike me though that if the party is going to stick with the policy of legalising cannabis its senior figures need to do a better job of making a case for it. I’ve yet to hear one who did not seem embarrassed about the policy, particularly when asked about their own kids smoking cannabis.
P.S. Have Tim Farron’s eyebrows always looked like that? Perhaps it was the lighting but they seemed to be strangely sculpted (and very animated); I was quite distracted by them for the first few minutes!
Tiredness on both sides maybe.
Neither Andrew or Tim’s finest hour.
It has to be said though that after the chairing last night and Andrew now, the pendulum has arguably swung too far the other way.
The interviewers are now starting to get in the way of genuine answers?
What I don’t like is in most of the interviews with all the parties focus on the past and it is the present and future policies we need to scrutinise. I don’t think they read the manifestos properly or do any research behind the policies. Also why focus on negative points rather than positive ones or missing items from the manifesto we need to get people interested in politics not turn them off. We need to have more women and people with disabilities into politics and sometimes lack of self confidence could put people off and these types of interviews will not increase confidence. I think they should do video interviews from questions from members of the public – 1 for each party and a couple of fun questions like what are your musical tastes and why or what is the funniest joke you have heard as they will bring out their true personalities.
I was furious after watching the interview and the way Tim had been treated. I am glad it wasn’t just me, but others felt that Andrew Neil had been particularly rude to Tim. I have now watched it again and I have some criticisms for Tim. His answers were sometimes waffling (some might say “folksy” or as Peter Watson says he went off at a tangent) and he could have tried to get to the point quicker, but I expect he thought he had plenty of time. I have complained to the BBC.
Tim could have been clearer that he hadn’t changed his mind regarding tuition fees but we hadn’t found the £11 billion need to abolish them. His answers to the questions regarding rolling back the state surveillance powers and restricting government access to encrypted messages were poor. If he had evidence that these powers are not needed he needed to present that evidence. If Tim had read the report by the Royal College of Psychiatrists he might have been able to quote their report “psychotic illness is quite unusual” and that they consider the circumstances needed to increase the risk is not “probable” or likely. (This is I suppose was a failure in preparation regarding our cannabis policy.)
@ Paul Walter
“Tim appeared brave”
Perhaps Tim was trying to be assertive against someone who would let him.
I have just caught it on Youtube. It’s odd how people’s reactions can differ so much. I thought it was one of Mr Farrons best interviews yet. He came across as principled, knowledgeable and confident – and generally very creible as a new opposition leader.
Also he avoided the folksiness of the leader’s debate which he went too far with (funny though it was in parts).
I feel as though my faith in him as a leader has been confirmed.
I’m sorry but, to tell it as it is, Tim was not impressive…The first few minutes started well but after a while it became almost embarrassing… I believe that the British public have made a terrible mistake in leaving the EU and Andrew Neil gave Tim upteen chances to say just that; but, for me, Tim didn’t. He just waffled…
I don’t believe Neil was any harsher on Tim than on May or Corbyn…After all, May’s performance was awful and it was Neil’s refusal to allow her to retreat into any ‘comfort zone’ that did it…He treated Tim the same…. Corbyn was far more impressive by not waffling and, even if you don’t agree with what he says, he remained calm and lucid…
I didn’t see this, but according to social media, the people who never were going to like our policies thought Tim was awful, while the people who like them think that Neil was a bully. I’m guessing for floating voters, the bickering made it too frustrating to hear any clear message.
It’s very easy with the benefit of hind-sight, and from the comfort of the sofa, to devise top tips on how better to answer certain questions, but I think it’s safe to say that Neil was going to be tough and a bit snide (as he is with most politicians) regardless of approach. I know that if I were put through a similar process I’d just go all sarcastic, which might technically and briefly get on over on the interviewer, but wouldn’t impress the sort of person who needs persuading to my point of view!
It is frustrating that when we have the only properly costed manifesto, that we are given little opportunity to talk about it. Our manifesto is, IMO, better for the NHS, social care, and education than Labour, and yet all those of us to our supposed left can talk about is ‘tuition fees’ and ‘in bed with the Tories’.
Whilst agreeing that Andrew Neil interviewed in an aggressive fashion, I couldn’t help thinking that Tim lacked clarity. Whilst answering questions (particularly on Brexit) he appeared to give nuanced rather than straightforward answers. This struck me as giving the impression that he was not answering the question. I started to wonder if this was not how he got himself into difficulties over the interpretation of his views on other issues.
1. Who watched it anyway?
2. Just about sums up our campaign
3. An unecessary election that has lasted far too long, become a bore for many except the media
@jo jons – pretty much agree with everything you said.
Andrew Neil is a hard interviewer – to everyone. The problem was that Tim Farron talked over him all and waffled on about nothing. Why does he give these personal anecdotes about his family?
Yes, the LibDems don’t want a Hard Brexit – but you don’t want a Soft Brexit either. You want to ignore the Referendum result. The Lib Dems should be campaigning for the best possible deal – customs union or near full membership of single market – not staying in the EU.
At the outset of the campaign I posted a comment about probably voting Lib Dem this time after vowing never to do so again! I also said that this election gave the Lib Dems a great opportunity to surge in popularity and felt that with a leader like Steel, Ashdown or Kennedy it would happen but that Farron wasn’t up to it.
I know there is still a week to go but I think a great opportunity has been lost and I really don’t know where the party goes from here. In retrospect having a leader who struggled tortuously with gay issues etc was always going to be hard going and it pretty much ensured the campaign never got off the ground.
Anyone not wanting a Tory hegemony is going to have to hope that Labour can produce a more acceptable leadership by the next GE.
I watched the Tim Farron interview. It seems obvious the a vote on the EEC deal would encourage Europe to give us a rotten deal hoping we will vote to stay in. Tim Farron is aware of this, I hope the rest of us are!
Donald Barber
I watched it and wondered why Tim Farron wouldn’t say that he would campaign to remain in the EU in a 2nd referendum come what may. It just came across as bizarre.
Tim appeared to be poorly prepared for what were obvious attack questions that Andrew Neil uses in his both of his regular TV slots on the Daily and Sunday Politics programmes .Sometimes brevity is better than meandering responses to such questions, both failed to engage the electors/viewers in this car crash interview.
@Jo Jons “Refused to state what is obvious about the LibDem position on any second referendum. Why?”
@Martin Clarke “I watched it and wondered why Tim Farron wouldn’t say that he would campaign to remain in the EU in a 2nd referendum come what may.”
Just about the only report on the interview (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/01/tim-farron-id-campaign-to-stay-in-the-eu-in-a-second-referendum) seems to have used a headline based on the answer that Tim Farron was implying without actually giving.
I assume he has to do this because giving the straight “obvious” answer then invites the response that the party is not respecting the outcome of last year’s referendum after all, which contradicts another plank of the party’s platform. This highlights what seems to be an unnecessarily messy approach, muddying the waters around the party’s most distinctive policy in the general election.
Let us hope Norman Lamb is re elected. I always found Farron impressive before so I hope this was a blip.
The Conservative candidate for South Thanet along with others is to be prosecuted for election expenses offences.
Based on the You Gov poll the only practical combination after 8th June would be a Conservative Government supported by the SNP. No other combination would work – a bit like 2010. Would that mean Brexit being cancelled ?
OllyT: This “struggl[ing] tortuously with gay issues” is pretty much a media invention. The only ones pushing it are certain journalists. And Corbynistas, who seem ready to put aside their Dear Leader’s silence on Chechnya and his links with the gay-stoning Iranian regime. In reality, Tim is one of the strongest campaigners for LGBTQ rights in current politics. He was the only major party leader to condemn the gay persecutions in Chechnya.
Not seen the interview, so reserving judgement on that, but the gay thing does not seem to have come up, suggesting that it has been put to bed now. Not that we would ever take any lectures on LGBTQ issues from a Tory.
It was the tortuous way Tim answered the questions, not the answers themselves, which made this interview such a disappointment. People are entitled to a simple Yes or No where that is appropriate, not a long and complicated explanation involving friends and family and going back into history.
It was the fact that when asked, ‘So if we stay in the single market, and subject to the ECJ, how is that leaving?’ he didn’t say, ‘It isn’t leaving, don’t you get it, we want to remain, we’ve always wanted to remain’ when that was what he was obviously thinking.
That was the fundamental problem: it was obvious the answers he wanted to give (‘Yes, of course we want to overturn the result of the referendum, we think people voted the wrong way and they deserve another chance to vote the right way’, for example) so the fact he kept not giving them, and instead spouting prepared speeches that were only tangentially related to the questions he was actually asked, just made him look shifty.
One of my neighbours, who is definitely not a Liberal Democrat, stopped me in the street to say that he thought that Andrew Neil was extremely rude and aggressive and did not give Tim a proper opportunity to answer questions before he interrupted. He felt that Tim had done very well to keep calm and did well in the circumstances.
Donald Barber please note:
Upon the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, the European Economic Community (EEC) was renamed the European Community to reflect that it covered a wider range than economic policy.
This was also when the three European Communities, including the EC, were collectively made to constitute the first of the three pillars of the European Union (EU), which the treaty also founded.
The EC existed in this form until it was abolished by the 2009 Treaty of Lisbon, which incorporated the EC’s institutions into the EU’s wider framework and provided that the EU would “replace and succeed the European Community”.
@Alex Macfie “the gay thing does not seem to have come up, suggesting that it has been put to bed now”
Unfortunately it seems to have come up again today in an LBC radio interview: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2017/jun/02/general-election-2017-immigration-target-david-davis-question-time-politics-live?page=with:block-59313901e4b0be3ed19221cb#block-59313901e4b0be3ed19221cb
I sympathise with Tim Farron but unless he can precede “Look at my voting record.” with “Of course it’s not a sin.” then his liberal approach can be interpreted by his opponents as “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” which is only a small step from suggesting that those who “sin” can be “redeemed” or “forgiven”. Just like his problems last night on other topics, instead of appearing evasive, a simple short answer would avoid a lot of confusion and possible misinterpretation/misrepresentation.
I thought that Andrew Neil was digressive, Tim could have been more succinct in some of his answers. He was on Woman’s hour 1st thing this morning with Dame Jenni Murray, far more civilized & not quite as long winded. Greening, for the no-show May, who was on in the last segment was just scaremongering , waffling and evasive.
Andrew Neil is – and probably always will be – a thug and a bully in interviews. He approaching interviewees having already made up his mind what he thinks they believe. He is ideally suited to ‘The Daily Politics’ and to the BBC’s undeclared, but increasingly obvious, bias against the Liberal Democrats. I would say to the author’s of previous posts that they should ALWAYS formally complain on the BBC’s website. That said, I am still waiting for a response to a complaint I made a month ago. I don’t believe I shall get one before the 8th June and I shall then escalate it to OfCom
Many people have said they think Tim should stated he would campaign against any deal with the EU. I think this would have been wrong. I accept he waffled, but just as he was getting to his answer Andrew Neil interrupted him and then spoke over Tims answer by asking the question again. The clip on the BBC 1 6 O’clock news clearly gave the correct answer. Tim stated he felt no deal could be better than our existing deal and so he couldn’t see how he could support a deal worse than our current deal therefore he would be supporting the best thing for the UK that is staying in the EU.
@ Peter Watson
The Guardian report is positive (maybe a more positive response than a person would get from watching the interview).
@ Alex McFie
If you say so but in my opinion you chose the wrong leader and missed an open goal
Caron…”I am being too hard here because it is pretty darned audacious to go out on a limb against the power of the right wing media. We have been doing that pretty constantly for the past year if not longer. All I’m saying is that if we’d gone a step further, we might have seriously grabbed the agenda. Nobody would have ignored a bold statement like that….”
Absolutely..We will not win a majority in the election..Why not be honest and say what we believe…
As for the right wing media; who cares what they think? They will preach their anti-LibDem stories no matter what is said…
Sure, Neil is rude, but that’s what he does…May tried being evasive and her session was even less pleasant to watch because she started out as ‘Strong and Stable’ and ended up looking anything but…
Tim, and his advisors, should have learned from it and disarmed Neil’s trademark repeat questions but giving straight answers…It is difficult to belabour a point when the first answer, as you suggest, is, “Yes”…Any rude follow up can be met with an equally rude, “Which bit of ‘Yes’ didn’t you understand!i
I don’t think Farron’s got much to complain about here. The trouble is that he seemed to want to give long, rambling, “folksy” answers (as another commenter put it), and I reckon Andrew Neil is right that the viewers really don’t want that. There is time to give a nuanced answer, as long as you get straight into it rather than going all round the houses with personal anecdotes and so forth.
I also agree with Caron that you’d have done much better to have gone fully anti-Brexit. You had nothing to lose.
I think you learned the precisely wrong lesson of the coalition. I think you’d have been much better off taking 2015 on the chin and trying to carry on with a Clegg-type “centrist governmental” image. Instead you went back to a more old-fashioned Liberal vibe, and I don’t think it’s done anything for you except make you feel good. It’s been your softer version of Corbynism.
Wednesday and Thursday night TV hero to villian in 24 hours!!!!!
Can we move on there seems to be an unexpected swing to the left, if the Conservative fall back to 38 -40 we are in the game in those seats where Labour voters are still tactically supporting us, not so many now I grant you but sufficient maybe to save our bacon.
Tim stated he felt no deal could be better than our existing deal and so he couldn’t see how he could support a deal worse than our current deal therefore he would be supporting the best thing for the UK that is staying in the EU
And how is that not the same as saying, ‘The people voted the wrong way last year, so I want to overturn the referendum result because I think that is the best thing for Britain’?
Why insist he will respect the referendum result when he clearly doesn’t, and end up looking shifty for not saying what he clearly means?
@Dav “Why insist he will respect the referendum result when he clearly doesn’t”
You have fallen into the trap of assuming “respecting the referendum result” means “agreeing with it”. For example, I respect the 2015 election result in that I don’t think there was any widespread fraud and so Cameron was the legitimate PM, but I still don’t think it was the right choice. See?
theakes @ dav
Agree with both your comments above.
Tim is the best leader the Lib Dem’s have at the moment.
Yes he needs to be more succinct at times.
However, he is passionate, a natural orator and comes across very well in the latest video (parallel thread).
He is refreshing and usually honest compared to the other party leaders.
He has received a lot of publicity both in the mainstream and social media in the last week.
Compare this to a few months ago, when the party was been ignored totally.
Look at how far he has come in a short time.
A few weeks ago I was feeling very disillusioned and said the Lib Dems would get 5-7 seats. Since then the campaign has broadened out, is more balanced and Tim is getting a lot of positive comments on social media particularly.
Yes there is a long way to go, a very long way and much fine tuning to be done, but I will be disappointed now if the Lib Dem’s don’t get at least double figures next week.
We’ll see, Tim is working flat out, has a very difficult balancing act to perform and is learning all the time. Lets get behind him.
He
@Mike S well said – noses to the grindstone.
But after June 8th someone – and Caron, as a member of the Federal Board, is ideally placed should enquire of behalf of the Party how these strategic stances were arrived at, who advocated what and when. When and Who if anyone advocated the Carl Gardiner and Caron line above, who the Andrew Duff, who the line actually taken.
George Eaton here http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/june2017/2017/06/election-shows-why-new-centrist-party-would-struggle touches on why he and others think that the 48% strategy was always going to lead to tears – how 69% of the public were ‘fair play’ types and thought it right that the Government before and after this election, needed to get on with job of extricating the UK from the EU and how the 31% held a variety of opinions on what else they wanted from their politicians. We fished in a small pool and should not be surprised to have caught one or two minnows.
But that review needs to take place – specifically and apart from anything else. I would like to know who encouraged Tim so that he does not take all the blame, if blame there is, which I expect. We need to see all the fingerprints. As it is this has been the most low profile led campaign I can ever remember – just compare it with Paddy’s public commitment 2 years ago.
Peter Watson: He has already said before that it’s not a “sin”. So if some media trendy is asking the question YET AGAIN, what it shows is that they don’t care if he’s answered the question, the “faith” line is the one they are going to go with, and they will go on and on about it regardless. This was always going to be the case. THEY DO NOT CARE IF THERE IS ANY TRUTH TO IT. That is why the ONLY legitimate answer is to say “You’ve kept on asking this, I’m not prepared to answer any questions on that anymore, as you know my answer.” Not validate their persistent attempts to make it an issue regardless of its validity.
Andrew Neil opened by observing that the manifesto advocates, “UK laws being made in Brussels, having no control over immigration policy and for Britain to stay under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice”.
Those are all fair points that go to the heart of much of the anti-EU sentiment so surely Tim Farron would have crisp and convincing responses.
Unfortunately not. All we got was waffle leading Andrew Neil to come back with the same questions again – leading to yet more waffle.
Tim could have/should have said that of course we need to pool some sovereignty and make some laws jointly with the rest of Europe. That’s obvious for things like pollution that crosses borders. Ditto criminals. It’s less obvious, but equally true, for the laws and rules governing our trade with mainland Europe. Conversely, there are other things that are no proper concern of Brussels and those it should keep its nose out of.
If we want to continue trading in Europe (as we must to survive) that will only be done according to a rulebook. If we unilaterally withdraw all we will achieve is losing our seat at the top table where the rules are made so, far from becoming ‘independent’ of Brussels, we will find the ground rules are redrawn to favour the EU27 and disadvantage us and reducing the UK to a latter-day colony of the Franco-German axis.
Tim Farron could have gone on to say that all the “options” Theresa May keeps talking about exist only in her own head. In fact, the EU27 have been remarkably united and clear that there will be a steep price for Brexit. Although the details aren’t yet clear it’s looking increasingly likely that the so-called ‘negotiations’ will be more like ‘dictation’ by the EU27. Therefore it’s vital that Parliament gets to vote whether or not to accept a deal that has been sold as a pig in a poke.
The Lib Dems have got the EU wrong for years. We should have fought to change it, to remove the notorious democratic deficit and to limit its powers to their proper sphere. These are issues with broad support across Europe. Trying to pretend that everything Euro is wonderful is dumb beyond belief.
OllyT: There weren’t many options for leader, and the party had been so hollowed out by the 2015 rout that there was never any chance of the sort of poll surge some people are talking about, regardless of leader. The national media are determined to ignore us, or ask irrelevant questions to our leader, so the only way to get our message across is ground-level campaigning.
@ Bill le Breton – totally agree. We must belatedly accrept that, however well intentioned the design of its governance and policy-making arrangements, the uncomfortable fact is that they simply don’t work as proven in the real world with depressing regularity.
I find the comment made about the party , and what it wants, terrible, worse than the poor , non stop , full on never pausing for a second or modulating at all, from Tim in this interview !
A majority view pushed through a conference with a very pushy stance decided unilaterally the second the vote happened, does not give anyone the right to presume everyone in this party wants to now fight Brexit rather than be more considered .
Please stop making a travesty of the second word in our title which is not relating to Unanimity but Democracy , “for the many , not the few ” is not my cup of tea if it ignores minority opinion, ” for one and all, as I say so ” is whats getting us into the mess we are in the polls !
Some people seem to be getting a bit down, unsurprisingly but there is some good news. This Election has been promoted by the Media as a 2 horse race & smaller Parties have been badly squeezed in The Polls. The good news is that we seem to have levelled out, we may even have gone up a tiny amount.
Of course our National vote has very little to do with how many MPs we get, that is down to ruthless targetting on a a small number of Constituencies.
There is a wide range of predictions out there from various teams, anything from 2 Seats to 14, we will know soon enough. Lets leave all the Post-Match analysis till the Game is actually over.
There should be no question of blame, Bill le Breton, whatever the election results. For one thing we were always bound to be ‘fishing in a small pool’, and for another the election has been deliberately placed a year too soon for us. It doesn’t matter if 69% of the population currently thinks that the Government needs to get on with extracting us from the EU, what will matter is what the population comes to think as the negotiations proceed and the hopelessness of the Government’s stance becomes apparent. It is too soon to state that ‘you were wrong and we are right’, which offends people, and we should not give the impression that we would, given the chance, impose another referendum regardless. So I think Tim’s consistent stance, upheld by the party vote last September, is the only correct one. I too found the interview trying, and wish he had been less discursive and answered more directly, though he did keep calm and pleasant; but what he was trying to say was his and our consistent policy. We could have no better leader at present, and I for one am happy to follow Tim into our next five years of building up this party which I love.
There’s nothing wrong with a bit of arguing with the interviewer if they keep interrupting you, but obviously too much is bad.
On strategy, I don’t think the current problem with the Lib Dems is they aren’t pro-EU enough, but I can see how the confusion might put people off, but going 100% against brexit would put many people off too. It’s a very divisive thing to do. Single market is much easier.
Neil was rude to the point of being unprofessional, but surely Tim should have realised this was to be a relatively short half hour interview that would probe into what Neil considered to be the potential weaknesses and contradicitioms of our campaign, just as he has with the others.
If you agree to participate in an interview (or any other media format) you have to play the game the best you can, but cannot be seen to reject the format altogether. This wasn’t the time for him to launch into five minute anecdotes about his constituents, and trying to do so against the flow of the interview wasn’t a sensible decision.
Katharine “there should be no question of blame”. I totally totally agree, but of course there will be and by people who probably will say the opposite publicly then to what they said privately over the last year. Or they will claim to have opposed a strategy or tactic in counsel when they actually kept quiet.
The media have been trying to achieve a number of things in this election. One of these is that after this election a new centrist party will be formed. In order to achieve that people will criticise the functioning of this party, The Liberal Democrats.
We have already seen this with the remark that the Liberal Democrats are ‘bedblockers’ delaying the creation of such a party.
That is why it is important that if,repeat if, certain people from within the party make those claims after June 8th, someone can hold them to task and say what they were actually saying and advising.
If the polls are anything like correct there will be no new party as Corbyn will be seen as the saviour of his party against all the odds and the Liberal Democrats will have been crushed. Why would any Labour MPs want to start a new party in those circumstance and with the present electoral system?
I said from the beginning Corbyn would be a disaster for the Liberal Democrats as he would attract the sort of people tired of the present set up which of course includes membership of the EU. There has been an angry mood about for some time.
We shall see who is right after 8th June.
Tim did much better in his interview with Nick Ferrari (http://www.lbc.co.uk/politics/parties/liberal-democrats/tim-farron/ ).
However there were a couple of bad patches. I don’t understand why Tim can’t just say that homosexuality and having an abortion are not sins. It is no good saying he won’t talk about his faith. It is nearly as bad as Jeremy Corbyn not clearing saying he would use nuclear weapons if the UK was attacked with nuclear weapons. At the start of the interview Tm states that he had decided not to let Andrew Neil interrupt him and divert him from what he wanted to say. And he wouldn’t do things differently.
nvelope2003: Jezmania could well go the way of Cleggmania. We were never fishing in the same pool of voters as Corbyn anyway.
—Most of the comments here are off-base…I believe most don’t realise that Farron was employing (a very poor type of) political strategy, one you can see fairly often if you religiously watch Daily Politics…
—The strategy is one that Neil (and his regular audience) have, unfortunately, become accustomed to over the years–and one that Neil called him on early in the interview: filibustering….It is employed only in extremitis, and by individuals who are, first and foremost, frightened. It is also utilized by those for whom a great deal is riding–and those who know that both Neil’s intellect–and ability to “catch” them when they mispeak–is unsurpassed….
—THAT was the reason for Farron’s unusually S-L-O-W speaking, his meandering, his “list making,” and his “family incidents”….he was trying to BURN TIME….(The problem with this method, of course, is that it tends to make the one employing it look weak and unsure and….frightened of their arguments…..Farron compounded this impression by, in addition (again, to burn up time), being combative…..
—So Farron came out of the interview looking terrible—and the undecideds watching, no better off than if they hadn’t tuned in……Good job, Farron.
@ Alex MacFie “We were never fishing in the same pool of voters as Corbyn anyway.”
Maybe not in your little pool.
Michael BG: Hyperbole much?!?!?!?
Surely you can see how UTTERLY RIDICULOUS this statement is. Comparing one politician’s approach to national security on the one hand, with another’s supposed view on “sin”, abortion and homosexuality. They are simply in a totally different league and to compare the two is JUST PLAIN OFFENSIVE.
First of all, Tim has ALREADY made clear that he does NOT think homosexuality is a sin. Second, his record as a campaigner for LGBT+ rights speaks for itself. He, unlike Corbyn, condemned the Chechnya gay persecutions, the only major party leader to do so. Third, he has stated that he supports the present abortion law as it stands. Finally, this sort of issue is subject to free votes in Parliament anyway. WHY should he have to answer the same question AGAIN AND AGAIN, when the person asking it transparently has an agenda? I think he is entirely right to say that he is not prepared to go along with this line of questioning anymore. To keep giving a straight answer is essentially to validate the question and say that it’s OK to ask that sort of question of someone who the asker ought to know PERFECTLY WELL is absolutely pro-LGBT+ rights. It would legitimise the asking of loads of other questions about whether this or that is a “sin”. He is absolutely right to reject this line of questioning.
@Alex Macfie “We were never fishing in the same pool of voters as Corbyn anyway.”
This is an interesting point, but I have to disagree.
I will almost certainly vote for Labour on Thursday (a redundant vote in a safe Tory seat, but hey ho). I was once a member of your party (originally Liberal Party and then a “salad”) and until May 2010 I voted for the Lib Dems and their predecessors in every type of election (apart from a tactical Labour vote in a Lab-Con marginal seat in 1997). So I would suggest that I am in a pool in which both you and Corbyn are fishing. Indeed, I keep returning to this site in the as yet fruitless hope that I might again find the bait on the Lib Dem hook appealing (to stretch your analogy a bit further!).
Your comment reminds me of the statements by Nick Clegg’s adviser Richard Reeves in 2012:
(http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/politics/2012/09/case-truly-liberal-party)
That approach has not proved successful.
@Alex Macfie “Comparing one politician’s approach to national security on the one hand, with another’s supposed view on “sin”, abortion and homosexuality. They are simply in a totally different league and to compare the two is JUST PLAIN OFFENSIVE.”
I completely agree. After all, if any of those things is a “sin”, surely it would be launching Trident and killing millions of innocent people. What is Tim Farron’s position on that?
Tim was dreadful in that programme, no other description , Neil is someone you need to try and have a proper conversation with not look smart Alec, roll on the audience tomorrow , and Dimbleby, and answers more friendly and folksy, which he most obviously was not in the Neil, one at all, didn’t think Tim could be so irritating !
@ Alex Macflie
I don’t like using capitals but perhaps I should have “It is NEARLY as bad”. Both Tim Farron and Jeremy Corbyn have refused to answer the questions directly but if pushed hard enough they can come up with the right answer. Tim has said homosexuality is not a sin and Jeremy has stated that if nuclear weapons are fired at the UK “of course” he would fire ours back. The point is not about the seriousness of the question but how not responding clearly looks – i.e. it looks bad.
I would suggest that Tim answer the question every time and count each time he does so he can say “homosexuality is not a sin and this is the tenth (or twentieth) time I have said this. I wonder how many times I have to say it before people stop asking?” I think this is the only way to close the subject down.
@ Lorenzo Cherin
“and folksy”
I hope not. He needs to answer the questions clearly without waffling, but just clearly explaining our position. He needs to keep his personal experiences very limited to ensure they are seen as empathy and no one-upmanship.
Peter Watson 3rd Jun ’17 – 10:59pm……..
I am in almost exactly the same position…Until 1997 I had only ever voted Lib(Dem) and considered myself a lifelong supporter…Post 2010, I found myself wondering where ‘my’ party had gone; as my beliefs hadn’t changed…Richard Reeve’s statement was the last straw; my vote hadn’t been borrowed but our leadership had ‘gone fishing in another pond’ (with Alex Macfie, presumably)…Just before the 2015 election they came back with freshly baited hooks (I must lose this metaphor) but I, along with thousands of others, had gone….
Today, with an ever more right wing Tory party and a Labour party further to the left than for decades, we should have a support base three times our measly 7-9%…..What is worrying is that, with May having more ‘wobbles’ than Boris Johnson ‘jogging’ and the constant vilification of Corbyn in the media, we aren’t making any progress…
The public have polarised in this election, between those fearful of financial irresponsibility, attracted to a veneer of strength and stability, and who, with regards to Brexit, just want someone who will ‘get on and finish the job.’ These have gravitated to May and the Conservatives. Those that feel themselves to be the victims of financial austerity, who are angry about the gap between rich and poor in society, and who are anti-establishment by instinct, have gravitated to Corbyn and to Labour.
It is rare for one of the establishment parties to be led by someone perceived as being anti-establishment, but it is a double-whammy for traditional anti-establishment parties such as Lib Dems and the Greens, seen as irrelevant by virtue of their size, and having lost the protest vote pull they may have had in the past.
In the course of the next parliament we will either see Corbyn replaced by a bland, more centrist figure (which will re-open the opportunity for the anti-establishment vote), or, if the socialist left still dominates Labour, a growing clamour for a new grouping, a UK version of En Marche! Whether that comes to anything or not is another matter, though I fear that, at a Westminster level, the Lib Dems would be seen as too insignificant to be major players in the debate.
@ Alex McFie,
It is the Liberal Democrat’s approach to national security that most concerns me.
John Bicknell: insignificance, will the Lib Dems even have an MP after Thursday? Let us pray.
As the icing on the cake. Tonight’s Question time appearance has been move from early evening on BBC1 to a graveyard slot at 22.30 on BBC Parliament where no-one will see it.
No it hasn’t – 9pm on Monday https://twitter.com/bbcquestiontime/status/871385983484387328
@ George Flaxman and Hywel
When George posted, his information was correct. It has now changed.
i am sorry but Corbyn is the first politician in a long while who has been able to express the simple emotion of caring. That is an indictment of our figure heads as much any others.
Perhaps they cared but they never were convincing. Sometimes they seemed callous and in love with austerity.
Michael BG: Sorry, as my wife says I should take a deep breath and calm down before doing anything like posting on a web forum. I do think, however, that serious party policy issues and personal beliefs are very different things, and it seems to me absurd to get obsessed over the latter, especially when we’re talking about someone who has the appropriate, liberal, instincts politically on the issues concerned.
Peter Watson: Jeremy Corbyn is not centre-left, he’s hard left. There are many Labour people whom Lib Dems could work with and have a lot in common (as Vince said). Corbyn isn’t one of them.
Bill, that’s an odd conclusion, since Tim has shown he cares passionately about many things, including homelessness, refugees, and the future of our young people if we are indeed obliged to leave the EU. Now in these final days before the Election, I would like to see Tim make one final strong speech about the harm the country is facing from Brexit and the hopelessly unrealistic approach of Theresa May. Let us fly our colours from the mast, let this be our Battle of Salamis!
@Katharine Pindar “let this be our Battle of Salamis!”
I had to google that. I am grateful to have learnt something but more relieved that this had nothing to do with sausages!
Not a good interview with Andrew Neil but most people would have regarded Andrew’s aggressive interviewing technique as bullying and at least Tim forced a stalemate conclusion. As a lifelong Liberal Democrat, I think Tim Farron has potential to be a great leader and should stick to his heartfelt convictions.
A pity the Edinburgh Question Time has been postponed to a less prominent TV slot as it should be friendlier questioning. Although “Project Fear” did not appear to be believed by the less educated electorate during the Referendum, the first effects of Brexit are starting to hit the UK Economy. Brexit will be the “Nuclear Winter” to the UK Economy, a blight for a Generation. No wonder other European Leaders think Theresa May is delusional claiming Brexit will be a success for the UK. I fail to understand why the polls are showing that so many Remain supporters are turning to Labour when Corbyn has been so ambivalent on the issue. However it is still the most promising area of weakness for the Conservatives as it is a minority that are in favour of May’s Hard Brexit.
The Remain votes are going mainly to Labour despite the fact that Corbyn has changed his position to coming out of the Single Market. Apart from rhetoric there is not a cigarette paper between the two main parties.
Tim Farron is standing for election. Andrew Neil isn’t.
Tim Farron was evasive, filibustered and rude.
Voters will have drawn their own conclusions.
Remain voters are going to Labour as a way of protesting against Mrs May because they do not think the Liberal Democrats have much support.
If she fails to get an overall majority in an election which was supposed to be all about Brexit surely that should override the result of the 2016 Referendum
The BBC have responded to my complaint, it appears other people complained too as they have posted their reply – http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/complaint/andrewneiltimfarron/
@ Alex Macfie
I always type my posts in a word document before posting and sometimes I decide not to post them. I am not sure. I think it is important if Jeremy Corbyn’s personal beliefs mean he couldn’t under any circumstances order the firing of our nuclear weapons. However I do agree it does not really matter if Tim thinks some things are sins, so long as his voting record is liberal. However not answer questions directly is important and refusing to discuss his faith is no answer especially as he has said his faith is important to him.
Too busy helping in Tim’s constituency and getting home late to post lately, but it was grand to canvass with Tim, albeit briefly, on Saturday, and so encouraging to hear his Question Time responses last night (see the other thread on that), when he was absolutely the Leader we know and have every reason to value.
Taking the opportunity to say also to Peter Watson – your comment on mine made me laugh, thanks, Peter – but I am really disappointed that you still don’t believe in us. To me our party, whether tending centre-right or (as I much prefer) centre-left, is the only British party consistently offering most to the British people.
“I don’t understand why Tim can’t just say that homosexuality and having an abortion are not sins.”
Perhaps because he thinks they are?
In my book that’s not illiberal of itself. What would be illiberal would be trying to seeking to impose intolerance of homosexuality (which does not harm anyone) and/or opposition to abortion (which will often be the least bad option in difficult circumstances) on others. Tim Farron’s record here speaks for itself and is truly liberal in that whatever he thinks himself, he works to prevent repression and allow others to decide for themselves.