Tim Farron sacks David Ward – but the damage is already done

When the snap election was called last week, it looked like plain-sailing for the Liberal Democrats. Tim Farron’s party appeared on course for significant gains by simply appealing to the 48pc and talking about Brexit from a Remain perspective. However, a week on and it’s questions of religion that are proving a headache for the party.

After Tim Farron attempted to put an end to speculation over how ‘liberal’ his Christian beliefs are (telling the BBC he does not think gay sex is a sin), his party were swiftly plummeted into another media storm when it transpired that David Ward had been selected as the party’s candidate for Bradford East. The former Lib Dem MP was forced to apologise in 2013 for saying he was ‘saddened that the Jews could within a few years of liberation from the death camps, be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians’, and previously tweeted: ‘If I lived in Gaza, would I fire a rocket? – probably yes’.