Any quotes used must be attributed to Murnaghan, Sky News
 

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

As the Liberal Democrat annual conference is underway here, several new polls this morning might make pretty glum reading for the leadership of the party – nearly half of those who voted for the Liberal Democrats last year say they would now not back the party while only one in four think they are up to the job of being in government.  Well in a moment I’ll be speaking to the Party’s President, who is of course Tim Farron, but just to let you know also watching this discussion are our Twitter experts today and they are Kevin Schofield, political correspondent of the Sun, Mark Littlewood, director general of the Institute of Economic Affairs and Sam Coates, deputy political editor of the Times, they provide their reactions on Twitter, you can read them, we put them up on the side panels if you’re watching on HD and you can also follow on our website skynews.com.  So a very good morning to the Lib Dem President, Tim Farron.

TIM FARRON:

Good morning.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

I want to ask you first of all, is Arthur Scargill here, because there seems to be a bash the rich agenda here, 50p rate stays, bring in a raft of tax inspectors to catch them out, talk of a mansion tax and on it goes, what’s it all about?

TIM FARRON:

I haven’t seen Arthur so I couldn’t swear either way but I don't think it’s a particularly left wing angle when you are I suppose in an awful situation financially, the country, everybody is suffering as a consequence of the necessary cuts and economic austerity we face. Wouldn’t it be outrageous if the people who got away with it and the ones who didn’t pay their fair share were those with the broadest shoulders, those who were the wealthiest?  So I’m not for penalising the rich, I want to encourage people to make money but at a time like this, if the government had money to allow greater tax cuts how immoral and how stupid would it be just to give it to those who had the most to start off with?

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

There is another side to it all isn’t there?  At a conference after a fairly bruising year, it doesn’t play badly with the activists does it, that kind of Lib Dem left wing language?

TIM FARRON:

Well it’s about being fair to be honest.  I think you could talk to anybody out there whatever their politics, surely if we are told that we have a certain amount of money to go around and that there’s a choice between giving a tax cut to those who are earning over £150,000 or giving a tax cut to those who are earning less than £10,000, you’d have to be pretty mean spirited not to choose the latter.  That’s what the Liberal Democrats are doing and it’s what we’re stopping the Tories doing the other way round.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

So you’re stopping them doing it because we know the Chancellor says it’s temporary?

TIM FARRON:

All taxes are temporary in all governments so at some point in the future when the economy is stable and we’re not in dire straits then of course we’ll look at it but as things stand it would be immoral and it would also be counterproductive to give a tax cut to the wealthy.  If you think about it, if you earn  £150,000 a year, if you give them a tax cut they will either save it or spend it abroad.  If you give people at the bottom end tax cuts, they’ll probably spend it and it will be better for the economy as well as simply being fairer.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

Okay, what about the mood here, I mentioned some of the polling there, there are other polls around that say 67% of the country think the Lib Dems haven’t done very well in coalition to say the least and then on Nick Clegg himself, his personal rating is way, way down there and they liken him to a sheep.

TIM FARRON:

His personal rating is identical to Ed Miliband’s and Ed Miliband is leader of the luckiest opposition party in history really.  It would be wonderful to be in opposition at the moment being able to oppose things that any government in power is having to do, horrible, difficult decisions.  Obviously I look terribly, terribly young but I’ve been a member for 25 years and this is my 40 odd conference because we have two a year and I’ve been through much worse than this.  I don't know what our opinion poll rating is at the moment but is it 10, 12, 14?  It has sometimes been as high as 17.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

What’s worse than losing 500 councillors and seeing the idea of electoral reform gone for a generation?  Something the Lib Dems, you all your life must have aspired to, it’s not going to happen.

TIM FARRON:

Two things there.  The reality is that we’ve had a horrible year in terms of elections, I’m merely saying that we’ve been through an awful lot worse and people who have got memories of any length will know that Lib Dems are fighters and survivors but yes, the results in May we just utterly appalling frankly.  We did okay in some parts of the country, I’m pleased to say in Cumbria we did well but around the country an awful pasting because I think our message was blurred and in some cases we didn’t actually have a distinctive message at all and we absolutely have to address that and I think this conference comes about at just the right time as we try to fight back and make sure we present a very clear and distinctive message on what we are doing, what we are actually doing is what the Tories would prevent us doing if they were in power on their own and what we are stopping the Tories doing if they were in power on their own.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

So you are very much in the Simon Hughes camp here, you are reigning in those awful Tories.  It seems as if the Lib Dems speak with two tongues when it comes to this and people then see Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander trooping in and out of Downing Street, cheek by jowl, they’re running the country as well. 

TIM FARRON:

Well they are and  that’s why it’s a difficult one to get right, being distinctive without being destructive. The reality is, I mean most normal folks out there watching this programme have to get on and agree with and compromise with people they don’t particularly agree with and may  not even like in their daily working lives for example, why can’t politicians behave like that as well?  I mean I disagree with the Tories on lots and lots and lots of things but I can still treat them like human beings and be civilised and the same applies to Labour as well of course so you can be Nick Clegg and be civilised and help to make sure the country is well and stably run and …

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

But you are in that camp and Nick Clegg is there as well, you are stopping the Tories being as far to the right as they’d like to be?

TIM FARRON:

Of course we are.  Nadine Dorries, bless her, and other people on that wing of the Conservative party are actually probably speaking better for us than we are for ourselves because they realise that if there was a Conservative majority there’s no way that the income tax would be being cut for the lowest paid, there is no way that the pensions would be increased for poor pensioners but there would have been income tax cuts for the rich, there would have been inheritance tax cuts for the rich and we’d be getting out of this financial mess in a much less fair way.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

On health, we have talked before, you and I, about the NHS reforms and talking to your party’s leadership, they say that’s over now, everyone one here at the Liberal Democrats agrees the listening process has taken place, the changes to the Bill have been made or certainly will be made but you think there is still a bit of work to do, don’t you, because there is still competition in there, there is still use of the private sector?

TIM FARRON:

It is massively complicated. I have had many concerns about the NHS Bill and they are well documented so it’s no news if I tell you them now.  I mean in a sense what we’ve got to now is a situation here the duty to ensure competition has been taken out, we had a promise on the floor of the House of
Commons to make sure it was the Secretary of State’s duty to provide a National Health Service will be reinserted in the Lords and so I am going to take that promise and assume they are going to keep it, I’m sure they will.  In which case we end up with a Bill which is no worse than the NHS we inherited from Labour, actually better and in reality we have undone a lot of the privatisation that New Labour left us with but yes, through this process it has been sort of back and forth hasn’t it?  But in some ways isn’t that a good thing that you get out of a balanced parliament because what you normally get is a government deciding a course of action, a bit Brownite if you like, they just go for it irrespective of what anybody else says.  Here you have a coalition where you have up front and public disagreements and discussions, toing and froing, and parliament actually does its job and you end up at the end with a Bill that is far better than you had at the beginning. 

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

Do you think it is the right tack to follow, this consistent message now that yes, we are the restrain on the Conservatives?

TIM FARRON:

Well I hope we’re more than that, I hope we’re positive and achieving our own Lib Dem policies.  You know if there was a Conservative majority this government would look a lot different, and in most people’s eyes, a lot worse.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

Forgive me for using the phrase, you know it better than I, it’s the economy stupid.  I mean you’re tied up, as the Conservatives are, in a proper recovery and at the moment it look like we could be heading into recession on the Lib Dem’s watch in government.

TIM FARRON:

Yes, I mean it is a huge risk and I don’t mean for the Liberal Democrats, I mean for the United Kingdom. We have inherited the most appalling financial basket case and getting out of it, there was no easy strategy.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

But five years on the government are not going to be saying, oh it was the previous Labour lot that caused it, they will say you were in government and you allowed it to happen.

TIM FARRON:

Absolutely, that is why – it’s not the only reason why but it is one of the reasons why it is so important that in being distinctive, in being clear about who we are as distinct from the coalition, we are also grown up enough to make sure we back the coalition and say right, we’re in this to make sure for five years Britain is well and stably run and that we get out of the economic mess we’re in because this is about avoiding mass unemployment, it’s about avoiding poverty, it’s about avoiding human misery throughout the United Kingdom, making sure the economy is stable and it recovers.  There are going to be ups and downs and I’m not so ignorant as to think that those ups and downs don’t mean anything other than regular families, human beings up and down this country suffering but we have to recover and it’s going to be hard. 

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

Mr Farron, thank you very much indeed for your time.  Tim Farron, Lib Dem President there.