Tim farron

Tim Farron has said the Lib Dems won’t be forming a coalition with Labour. But it seems Vince Cable didn’t get the memo. Cable has been taped suggesting that Lib Dem voters should back Rupa Huq, Labour’s candidate in Ealing Central. Here’s what he said: ‘I’ll just give one example – there’s Rupa Huq, who’s the candidate in Ealing. Purely but coincidence I found myself – I think it was on ‘Any Questions’ or one of those programmes in Warwick a few months ago, and I gave her a lift back home to Ealing. We talked for a couple of hours and it was very clear that on almost every

This election was won two days before it was announced, on Easter Sunday. Theresa May put out an Easter message in which she suggested that British values had a Christian basis. It was her version of David Cameron’s message two years before, in which he said that Britain is a Christian country. She was rather more convincing. I don’t know whether Cameron is sincerely religious, but he didn’t seem it. He didn’t even seem to try very hard to seem it, as if fearing that his metropolitan support might weaken, and perhaps that George Osborne would make a snarky jibe about it at cabinet. But it still did him good

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

Corbyn – Labour may scrap Trident nuclear deterrent Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn occupied the prime slot on the Andrew Marr Show this morning, and he told Marr that he wants to see ‘a very different country’. But how different? He was asked what he would say to the captains of the Trident submarines about whether to use their missiles in the event of a nuclear attack on the United Kingdom. ‘What I will be saying is that I want us to achieve a nuclear free world. What I want us to do is adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and take part in negotiations surrounding that, and crucially… immediately promote the

Happy now, everyone? David Baddiel? David Walliams? Our friend Owen Jones, the Guardian’s conscience keeper? And, not least Tory MP Nigel Evans. After being subjected to an inquisition on telly – courtesy of Channel 4’s Cathy Newman – about whether he does or does not regard homosexuality as sin, then a co-ordinated dissing online, and finally a straight, menacing question from Nigel Evans in the Commons – ‘does the Hon Gentleman think being gay is a sin?’– Tim Farron has capitulated, given in, abandoned the attempt to keep his views on a matter of conscience to himself. ‘So, I do not,’ he said. He was a bit red in the face

What threat do the Liberal Democrats pose to the Conservatives? Two years ago, this question could have been brushed aside as someone trying to cause mischief. In the 2015 election, the Lib Dems lost 49 seats, a result ‘immeasurably more crushing and unkind’ than expected. At PMQs last year, Theresa May mocked Tim Farron’s plight as she jeered that her party is ‘a little bit bigger than his is’ — at 330 MPs to nine. However, the EU referendum result has seen a change in fortunes for Farron’s once beleaguered party. As the largest — and loudest — unashamedly pro-EU party, the Lib Dems have been cleaning up of late in by-elections

Tim Farron’s fearsome foursome: May, Le Pen, Trump, Putin What can Tim Farron, leader of the Liberal Democrats, do to get attention? He had an idea  for the party’s conference in York today: suggest that the world is in the grip of a fearsome foursome: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Marine Le Pen… and Theresa May. He claimed that have the same traits in common: being “aggressive, nationalistic, anti-Nato, anti-EU. It is the post-war internationalist consensus unravelling in real time. Winston Churchill’s vision for a world that achieves peace through trade, common values and shared endeavour evaporating before our eyes.” Clegg: Bring on the election. The Lib Dems couldn’t do any worse BBC1’s Sunday

Last month, Tim Farron ruled out any electoral pact between the Liberal Democrats and Labour — branding Jeremy Corbyn ‘toxic’. With Labour mourning the loss of over 7,000 members in January, it seems Farron may be on to something. In contrast to Labour, the Liberal Democrats were buoyed by 4,000 new members last month. And just how many new members cited Corbyn as the reason they were joining the Lib Dems? Well, a little (yellow) bird tells Mr S that about 2,000 of them said Corbyn or the ‘state of Labour’ when asked why they are joining. It seems Corbyn’s increased media presence is having a positive effect after all — just for

‘For heaven’s sake, man, go!’ A week after the Brexit referendum, and that was David Cameron at the despatch box, on Jeremy Corbyn. It might be in the Tories’ interest for Corbyn to be leading the opposition, said Cameron, but it wasn’t in Britain’s, and he should push off sharpish. At the time, it sounded a lot like deflection. As in, wind your neck in, Hamface. You’re the one who just lost a referendum and your own career, so don’t go blaming it on wild-eyed Grampa Simpson over there, just because he was too busy making jam to do enough press conferences. Latterly, though, I have begun to realise that