Tag: Tim Farron

Tim Farron – a duty to rebuild

“And if it’s not the Liberal Democrats, then there will be nobody else to hold this Government to account across the country.”

17:10 Tuesday 15th March 2016
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: LibDem Leader Tim Farron MP is in Cambridge ahead of the local elections in May. He’s visited the major new community being built at Trumpington on Cambridge’s Southern Fringe, where 40% of the 4,000 homes being built are affordable. The LibDems are in decline in the area. They lost control of the City Council two years ago, and at the General Election lost the seat of Cambridge to Labour.
(TAPE)
TIM FARRON: Well it’s great to come up and to back Tim Bick and Julian Huppert and the team in Cambridge as we head towards the local elections on May 5th. They’re a real opportunity for the Liberal Democrats to rebuild as the main opposition to Labour across the city. I’m particularly looking forward to going to the Southern Fringe development of course, where 50% 0f the homes built are affordables, a project which is delivered thanks to Liberal Democrats when we ran the Council.
CHRIS MANN: But you don’t any more, do you? You mentioned two people of course who were defeated. They were thrown out, Tim Bick and Julian Huppert. No longer do you run the City Council. No longer do you have an MP there. So your visit is a bit late.
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LibDem Leadership announcement expected today

08:17 Thursday 16th July 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: Big political movement later on this afternoon. The new Leader of the Liberal Democrats is going to be chosen, Nick Clegg’s successor. Voting closed yesterday. There’s been a face-off between the party’s former President Tim Farron and ex-Minister Norman Lamb. I’m joined by our Political Correspondent Paul Rowley. Now Paul I know you’re a football fan. Can I have a score prediction please.
PAUL ROWLEY: Tim Farron three to two majority I would have thought. Three to two victory. I think he should win by about 60% of the vote. 40% to Norman Lamb. Tim Farron popular with the grass roots, what’s left of them after their annihilation at the General Election. His rival Norman Lamb much respected. He was a Minister in the last Government. maybe that’s a problem for him, because that’s possibly one of the reasons they were punished at the ballot box for going into coalition with the Conservatives. At the time Tim Farron was free to vote against his party on things like university tuition fees, which was such a damaging issue for them, and what became known as the bedroom tax. But whereas this is a party Dotty with fifty seven MPs when they entered Government, including when Julian Huppert was the MP for Cambridge. They’re now down to a rump of just eight of them, their lowest total since the Liberal Democrats were formed. Indeed you’ve got to go back to the General Election of 1970, the year Tim Farron was born incidentally, the year the Beatles split up, and I think the year that Cambridge United entered the Football League when it was worse than this. The old Liberal Party had just half a dozen seats under the late Jeremy Thorpe.
DOTTY MCLEOD: So you’ve been following the campaign. What’s it been like?
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