Lib Dem President Tim Farron says the Tories could "go off to the far right"

By Matthew Barrett
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A Wikipedia summary of far right ideology:

"The far right is commonly associated with persons or groups who hold extreme nationalist, xenophobic, racist, religious fundamentalist or reactionary views.The most extreme-right movements have pursued oppression and genocide against groups of people on the basis of their alleged inferiority."

Lib Dem President Tim Farron speaking on the Week in Westminster today:

"From an entirely partisan point of view, I rub my hands together with glee and think well, David Cameron, if you want to go off to the far right, you’ll find there are very few votes there. You only win elections in the centre ground, and David Cameron seems to be completely vacating it."

There are two ridiculous points made here. Firstly, the idea that David Cameron or the Conservatives would "go off to the far right". It is so utterly un-serious that it hardly merits any response. The second point is that Mr Farron implies there is no ideological space between "the centre ground" and "the far right". One can either be in the centre or the "far right" in Mr Farron's world.

Mr Farron periodically pops up to make these outrageously facile statements. He once said Thatcherism was an "organised wickedness". Goodness knows where Mrs Thatcher is on Mr Farron's farcical ranking of right-wing politics - and indeed what that says about his view of the British people who elected her thrice.

Lib Dem conference rolling blog - highlights of the party's anti-Tory positioning

Wednesday, 12.30pm:

It’s the final day of the Liberal Democrat conference, and so the final day of our intermittent live blog totting up all the anti-Tory positioning going on. And, in terms of rhetoric, it’s probably the quietest day so far: the overriding theme of Nick Clegg’s forthcoming speech is that the Lib Dems are now a “party of government”, and so his colleagues are on best behaviour this morning. Even Simon Hughes has been talking about the need for a decade of austerity.

But that isn’t to say that, in terms of substance, the Liberal Democrats have refrained from causing trouble for the Tories. In fact, they have passed two particular conference motions dismissing government plans. The first came last night, when they voted against the Justice and Security Bill, and particularly its proposals around “secret justice” courts. The second was this morning, with a resounding vote against Eric Pickles’ proposal to relax the planning laws around house extensions (the prospect of which Harry wrote about here). The Lib Dem councillor Chris White took the opportunity to swipe at Mr Pickles, as the BBC reports:

“Councillor Chris White, from St Albans, has delivered a stinging rebuke to Communities Secretary Eric Pickles, the minister responsible for the reforms. Mr Pickles harbours a ‘shoot-from-the-hip, issue-a-press-release-for-the-Sunday-papers attitude’, Mr White says. 'It is time to say enough is enough, let's try to get it right.'"

None of this is necessarily fatal to the government’s plans —people about the Lib Dem leadership are talking about these votes being advisory, rather than binding — but, at the very least, they increase the headwinds that Mr Clegg, and the Coalition, are operating against.

Tim Farron's proposal for permanent coalition-negotiating teams will shift the Lib Dems to the left

By Matthew Barrett
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David Singleton at PoliticsHome reports an interesting development: The Lib Dems' President, Tim Farron, has drawn up plans to establish a "reference group" made up of grassroots party members, which would oversee coalition negotiations if the 2015 election were to result in another inconclusive result. The proposal is set to be debated at the Lib Dems' spring conference in Newcastle - and if approved, the proposal would be permanently added to the party's constitution. 

Under the proposal, when a Lib Dem leader appoints a negotiating team (which must now be selected "with due regard to diversity"), the team would have to report to a "reference group", which will be appointed jointly by the party's policy committee and executive - containing elected activists - and the parliamentary party. The negotiating team will then give "regard to their respective views".

Tim Farron misses a golden opportunity to compare Cameron's Britain to Nazi Germany

By Paul Goodman
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Today's papers have reported Tim Farron's remarks on Sky yesterday, where his interview followed an earlier one with William Hague.  The Foreign Secretary had been questioned about the current atrocious events in Syria.  Farron said:

“Isn't it ludicrous you were talking to William Hague about many undemocratic countries overseas and here we are and half of our legislature are being appointed and not democratically elected?”

The aspirant Liberal Democrat leader is evidently right.  The non-election of members of Britain's second chamber is clearly comparable to the massacre of innocent people in Homs.

Lib Dem MEP says it will serve City right if UK's banks suffer from EU veto

By Matthew Barrett
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Below is a selection of prominent Lib Dems' reactions to David Cameron's veto at the European summit this week.

Sharon Bowles, the Lib Dem MEP who chairs the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, has made several strange remarks yesterday and today. In an interview yesterday, she said she wants to take up Irish citizenship, in order to be a citizen of a Eurozone country. This morning she tweeted:

"Media frenzy continues. The UK veto will hit negotiations on financial dossiers hard. The City will suffer. Maybe serves them right."

Chris Huhne moves to top of Yellow B**tards League table

By Matthew Barrett
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It's the conference season, and the annual gathering of Lib Dems gave senior Libs the opportunity to bash the Conservatives, bash the rich, bash government policies, and bash anything else likely to get a smile out of the downtrodden activists in attendance. 

We can review who has moved up or down on the Yellow B**tards League table, compared to our rankings from May.

 

   

Chris Huhne: In his speech to the Liberal Democrat conference Chris Huhne joked that he and Vince Cable competed with each other to be the most unpopular member of the Cabinet in the ConHome members' poll. Huhne undersells himself. He's actually been winning the wooden spoon for some time now. Perhaps it's his constant attacks on Conservative ministers or, this week, the 'Tory Right'? Perhaps it was saying Conservatives wanted to cut the 50p tax rate in order to help "their friends in the City"? Perhaps it's his growth-killing green measures? Perhaps it's the whole speeding controversy.  Perhaps it's the way he's treated his wife? So many questions but we have few doubts: Huhne is now the top of the Yellow B**tards League Table. We imagine he'll be pleased.

Vince Cable: During his speech to the Birmingham conference, Vince Cable said Tories who want to reform maternity rights are "the ideological descendants of people who sent children up chimneys". This attack aimed at Steve Hilton followed a period in which Cable has been hinting he might quit if he didn't get his way on banking reforms. There is a better side to Mr Cable, however, and his speech on Monday warning of tough economic times was a model of truth-telling that George Osborne should consider emulating.

 Tim Farron: Farron is promoted from Division One to the Premier League because of his less-than-subtle positioning for the leadership of the Liberal Democrats. He gave Total Politics magazine a hardly-unequivocal denial of his leadership ambitions: "I'm not pretending that I’m keeping my leadership bid quiet just for the right moment. I’m genuinely not sure." Farron's speech at conference was full of anti-Tory remarks, and Farron attacked the government's response to the riots, saying "we stood up against the witless kneejerk populism of the Tories after the riots". To top off Farron's promotion to the top league, he (like Huhne) even managed to drop in a reference to this very site during his conference speech: "If you listen to Nadine Dorries, ConservativeHome and the Daily Mail, then Nick Clegg is leading the government; but when it comes to the NHS, the Bankers and fair taxation, Nick seems to be leading the opposition too!" Matthew Parris was disgusted by Tim Farron's speech in yesterday's Times (£):

"You can see what Tim Farron’s up to. He’s positioning himself for the break-up of the coalition and a deal with Labour to form a new government: a deal he would seek as party leader. I can guess what you may think: that as a coalition sympathiser I see Mr Farron as a threat. The opposite is true. Before this week I did see the Lib Dem president as formidable. But something in that speech — something cheap, something shameless, something wily, something small, something not thoughtful or brave, something crowd-pleasing in a slightly desperate way — breathed a lack of political stature. At some subliminal level I sense that many in his party smelt it too."

Evan Harris: Harris may have been rejected by the sensible voters of Oxford West and Abingdon but he has not learnt any humility. He's never off the TV or radio complaining about parts of the Coalition's agenda. Nick Clegg might well agree with our top ranking for Mr Harris. The Deputy PM thought he had a deal on NHS reforms but Harris is unhappy with the compromise agreed between the Liberal Democrat and Tory leaderships and is threatening to reopen wounds in the months ahead.

 Simon Hughes: Hughes, the Deputy Leader of the Lib Dems, was in the Premier League last time but we've relegated him from the Big Four. He's been quieter since he was given the job of delivering fairer access to universities, although the bureaucratic system he's creating suggests he can still be a Premier League problem when he puts his mind to it. We expect Lib Dems to be more mean towards Tories on the eve of their conference and Hughes didn't disappoint. In an interview with last weekend's Observer he called the Conservatives ruthless - especially over the AV campaign - and bashed the government for trying to implement "extreme remedies", for trying to cut the 50p tax rate.

Baroness Shirley Williams: Baroness Williams is still a real headache for the Coalition - not least in her alliance with Evan Harris to scupper the already diluted NHS reforms. But she rebuked Chris Huhne and other Lib Dem MPs for their constant attacks on the Conservatives. “We can’t expect an idealistic, lovely friendship," she told Radio 4, "but one doesn’t need to bash the other side with all the abuse you can find.” How grown up!

Lord Oakeshott: He's been a little bit less visible in recent times so we've moved Matthew Oakeshott down a league but he still remains a disruptive influence behind-the-scenes. 10 Downing Street regards everything Oakeshott says publicly as an early warning of what Cable is plotting privately.

 Nick Clegg: Clegg is a tough one to categorise. His bashing of Labour in his big speech was exactly what you'd hope for from a Coalition partner but he's also boasted about his ability to block Conservative policies on Europe, free schools and on the rate of taxation. But we are keeping Clegg in a low league spot because we don't really believe his heart is in the Tory-bashing. Anthony Browne is probably right when he says Clegg's pandering to the Liberal Democrat base is done out of political necessity, rather than genuine conviction.

Andrew George: A rebellious backbencher - although not well-known, he works hard in trying to frustrate Coalition health policy. George led Lib Dem opposition in the Commons to the NHS bill, the Localism Bill, the redistribution of seats legislation, and tuition fees. In more recent times, George challenged the Prime Minister, and the Health Secretary, to debates about the NHS reforms.

Worth a mention: Bob Russell, Paddy Ashdown and Mike Hancock.

Jeremy Browne: Browne, along with David Laws, was wooed by the Conservative leadership prior to last year's election. A free-market, classical liberal, Browne is on board with the deficit reduction programme (indeed, he is apparently very keen on it). He is an opponent of the strategy of putting yellow water between the Lib Dems and the Tories. Unchanged from May.

Danny Alexander: Exceeding all expectations after replacing David Laws and George Osborne's number two, Danny Alexander has been effective at arguing in favour of the deficit reduction strategy.

David Laws: The Conservatives' favourite Liberal Democrat apparently wants to scrap the 50p tax and has said that his party should be the Coalition's motor, not its brake. Let's not forget that Laws is part of the pro-EU, pro-HRA Lib Dem consensus but he's the best of even the Orange Book grouping. Let's hope he returns to government soon.

Steve Webb: Iain Duncan Smith has repeatedly said he couldn't have hoped for a better minister. The secret of Webb's success has been to forget about politics for a season and focus on being an effective minister. His pensions plan may mean he'll become an historic, reforming minister. His sensible comments following the AV referendum result are characteristic of his open-minded approach to Coalition. Unchanged from May. 

Brian Paddick: Paddick is a new entry on the league table because he is the Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate for London in 2012, and will inevitably have to contrast himself with Boris. The good news is that his initial attacks have been on Labour's Ken Livingstone.

Who's top and bottom of the Yellow B**tards League table?

By Matthew Barrett and Tim Montgomerie 

On Wednesday, we reported that Tory MPs at the 1922 Committee wanted to "get those yellow b**tards", in reference to Liberal Democrats who were criticising Andrew Lansley's NHS reforms, having voted for it before.

In today's Mail on Sunday James Forsyth writes that 10 Downing Street is at the end of its tether in having to deal with the Liberal Democrats. They agree one thing one day and then revisit that agreement the next day. "It is like negotiating with an Italian," reports James, "You think everything has been agreed and shaken on, only for the other side to start demanding concessions before the deal goes ahead."

So, who are the real troublemakers on the Liberal Democrat side of the Coalition? Here's a rough guide...

 

Vince Cable: Cable's time in office, as the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, has not been a happy one - for him or his Cabinet colleagues. He threatened to abstain on his own tuition fees policy, admitted he thought about resigning over his BSkyB gaffe, and also implied he might prefer life outside government. He called David Cameron's modest speech on immigration "very unwise" and, as Paul Goodman pointed out last week, business doesn't think much of him.  As Charles Moore pointed out last week in a devastating column the tuition fees policy has become a terrible dog's breakfast: students oppose the debt, the Treasury isn't going to save much money and universities won't get the scale of resources they need to deliver world class courses. Well done Vince.

Chris Huhne: After numerous instances of criticising Conservatives over the AV referendum, Huhne is certainly one of the Premier League's Big Four. He has threatened to sue his Coalition partners and likened the first Muslim member of Britain's Cabinet to Goebbels. His climate change plan, although diluted by the Chancellor, threatens to wreck Britain's economic recovery, as Nigel Lawson warned yesterday. If he survives his formidable intellectual skills will mean his environmental policies could become a massive political problem for Cameron but his immediate future rests in the hands of the Essex police.

Simon Hughes: Hughes, the deputy leader of the Lib Dems, frustrated the Coalition on tuition fees - by not committing to voting for, or against the policy, then criticising the plans, then abstaining on the vote, then agreeing to be a "social mobility tsar", and then criticising the policy some more. Outside of tuition fees, Hughes led rebellions against the rise in VAT and housing benefit cuts, and said Baroness Warsi was "inventing facts" during the AV referendum. Most recently, Hughes has opposed the NHS bill (that he voted for), and said it needed "fundamental" change for him to vote for it again.

Lord Oakeshott: He's not the highest profile Yellow B**tard but certainly, behind-the-scenes, one of the most dangerous. Personally close to Cable and tactically close to Huhne, Oakeshott attacked George Osborne as "incompetent" when he resigned as a Lib Dem Treasury spokesman earlier this year. "He hates Tories," said one ConHome source and is stirring up opposition in the upper house to the Coalition's NHS and police commissioner plans.

Lib Dem President Tim Farron says Thatcherism amounted to "organised wickedness"

Tim Montgomerie

According to the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg the President of the Liberal Democrats also likened the Thatcher years to "sustained slavery". This is juvenile stuff and leaves no higher rhetorical gear for real outrages.

It is of course panic in the Lib Dem ranks. Farron's colleague Tavish Scott - leader of the Lib Dems in Scotland - said that the Coalition had prevented Cameron from "burning Scotland at the stake".

The Lib Dems are facing a disastrous set of Scottish, Welsh and local election results next week. It should be noted however that these are the most testing set of elections the Lib Dems are likely to face in this parliament. All the big left-leaning electorates (including Sheffield and Newcastle) are voting in this cycle and these are the electorates which have deserted Clegg in greatest numbers. Add in the AV vote - where Yes is trailing by up to 18% - and the first electoral test for the Lib Dems-in-Coalition are the worst test. Next year it's Boris v Ken and the Lib Dems will be a sideshow. When the next county councils are elected there is actually limited scope for some recovery for Britain's third party.

> Read Matthew Barrett's list from Monday on other Lib Dem attacks on the Tories. We won't update it yet. I suspect the Lib Dems haven't finished rallying their base yet, nor positioning themselves for the battle to succeed Clegg.

> Norman Tebbit at 4.15pm: How dare a Lib Dem nonentity accuse the Thatcher government of 'organised wickedness'

Tim Farron tells Ed Miliband to renounce Bush and Murdoch before making any more outreach to Lib Dems

Tim Montgomerie

During the leadership race Ed Miliband wasn't nice about the Lib Dems but he avoided knocking them during his first speech as leader and has today made a direct overture to a party that, at the grassroots level, leans left:

"To those who are reluctant to abandon ship but are concerned about the direction of their party, I invite them to work with us on issues of common interest ... I have asked Liam Byrne to work with Richard Grayson [a former Lib Dem policy director] to draw up areas where our policy review can be informed by submissions and ideas of Liberal Democrats who want to contribute. To Liberal Democrats who fear their deal with the Tories is shifting the gravity of British politics to the right, I invite them to work with us against the direction in which this government is taking Britain."

Mr Miliband highlighted three areas of common interest: social mobility, the economy and "the way we do our politics".

Tim Farron, the leaft-leaning President of the Lib Dems (and my tip to be the party's next leader) rebuked the Labour leader in pretty strong terms*: 

"Labour have just spent 13 years sucking up to Rupert Murdoch and George Bush - why would any sane progressive even give them a second glance? As part of the coalition government, Liberal Democrats have started fixing Labour's economic mess, taking millions of people out of Income Tax and reforming British politics. Things Labour had 13 years to do but failed to deliver. The Liberal Democrats have also announced more cash for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, one of the biggest moves to improve social mobility in decades. Continuing that work is something far more attractive to Liberal Democrats than helping Ed Miliband's increasingly desperate attempts to work out what he actually stands for. However, if he is serious about co-operation then the first thing he should do is stop the Labour Party's attempts to block the referendum on electoral reform that he claims to support."

The FT Westminster blog has a report on other parts of Ed Miliband's press conference including this difficult-to-dispute observation:  the pro-AV campaign will lose if Nick Clegg is the figurehead.

* I'm grateful to Andrew Sparrow for the quotes.