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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Tim Farron's speech to the Lib Dem conference - Politics live

Tim Farron speaking at the Lib Dem conference on Sunday. Today he is giving his main leader’s speech.
Tim Farron speaking at the Lib Dem conference on Sunday. Today he is giving his main leader’s speech. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Summary

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Tim Farron delivering his speech today.
Tim Farron delivering his speech today. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

Farron's speech - Verdict from the Twitter commentariat

And this is what political journalists are saying about the speech on Twitter. It’s being judged a hit.

From the Sunday Times’s Tim Shipman

From the Financial Times’s John McDermott

From the Guardian’s Rafael Behr

From Sky News’s Faisal Islam

From 5 News’s Andy Bell

From the Daily Telegraph’s Michael Deacon

From the Daily Telegraph’s James Kirkup

From the BBC’s Sam Macrory

Farron's speech - Snap Verdict

Farron’s speech - Snap Verdict: That was good - actually, very good indeed. Tim Farron is not always an assured TV performer, but he is a first-rate platform speaker and the highlights (the passage about refugees, at 12.50pm, and his peroration, at 12.58pm) were genuinely stirring. As a new leader he is relatively unknown, and he addressed this by making the speech much more autobiographical than is usual for a leader’s conference speech. (It helps that his background is quite modest; Nick Clegg could never turn his upper middle class childhood and Westminster schooling into a version of “My struggle”.) The speech was relatively discursive, as Farron mixed the personal with the political, but that seemed to work. He defended the party’s record in government, but not obsessively, and without sounding as if he were complaining about the electorate. And he set out a distinctive position on some issues. Farron ran for the leadership as the leftish candidate, and there was speculation that Jeremy Corbyn’s victory in the Labour contest would crowd him out of this territory, but Farron set out a position on immigration which is distinctive from Labour’s and, with a rather clever twist to the national anthem story (see 12.55pm), he attacked Corbyn effectively over Europe.

Will this give the Lib Dems much of a bounce? Probably not. It will take far more than a single speech to restore the party’s fortunes. But it’s a start.

Updated

Farron is now on to his peroration.

Today, with four and a half years until the next general election, the Official opposition seems to have left the playing field.

Less than 5 months since the worst result for our party in 45 years the circumstances have contrived to make our party more relevant, more central, more essential than we have ever been.

Britain needs an opposition that is economically credible, radical, liberal.

Britain needs an opposition that is passionate and socially just.

Britain needs an opposition that is serious about power to make a difference, to improve all our lives.

Under my leadership the Liberal Democrats will be that opposition, because if we do not do this, it is clear now that no one else will.

The alternative will be years of a disastrous one-party monopoly.

We do not have the right to rest after the trials of government.

As Jo Grimond said, ‘in times of war, in times of doubt Generals were advised to march their troops towards the sound of gunfire’

Well, troops I hear gunfire.

Fellow Liberal Democrats, there has never been more space for us, never been more need for us, never been a bigger challenge for us.

Against all the odds, we have just been given the chance to take centre stage.

We will accept that role.

It’s time for Liberal Democrats to win again.

Farron urges liberals from other parties to join the Lib Dems

Farron urges liberals from other parties to join the Lib Dems.

Maybe you are currently a Conservative – and you see your vote being used to punish working people on low incomes and to punish business by toying with exit from Europe?

Maybe you are currently in the SNP – and you see your vote being used to chase a second referendum while devolved services like the NHS are creaking at the seams.

Maybe you are currently in the Labour party – and you see your vote being used to pedal fantasy economics that will cause greater poverty and austerity.

I have this message for you.

If you are a liberal, why don’t you join the liberals?

Farron says Jeremy Corbyn’s ambivalence about the EU is a threat to Britain

Farron says when the EU referendum comes, the Lib Dems will be united in their determination to stay in the EU.

And he turns to Labour, for the first time in the speech.

There’s been a lot of nonsense written about Jeremy Corbyn’s patriotism following a service at St Paul’s a week ago.

Is it a threat to Britain if the leader of the Labour party doesn’t sing the national anthem? Not really.

Is it a threat to Britain if the leader of the Labour party is ambivalent about Britain’s future in Europe? Absolutely!

  • Farron says Jeremy Corbyn’s ambivalence about the EU is a threat to Britain.

Farron defines his liberalism.

A liberal is someone who looks for the best in people, not the worst. We believe everyone is of equal value and that people always achieve more together than they do when they are at each others’ throats.

That sounds like common sense, he says, but it is not the view of nationalists and little Englanders.

From the mouths of too many politicians come words of division and separation, spite and displacement.

It’s all the fault of Brussels, or the English, or the Scots, or the immigrants, or the idle poor, or the idle rich or business people, or the young, or the old, or foreigners or anybody else…

If you think that is wrong

If you reject the politics of blame and separation.

If you say Britain is best when Britain is together.

If you say Britain is best when it is outward looking, modern and inclusive

Then guess what. You’re a liberal. Embrace that diagnosis. It is an utterly decent and British condition.

Farron says UK should opt in to EU refugee resettlement plan

Farron goes on:

You know after the Second World War, Britain offered homes to several thousand children who had survived the death camps but whose parents had been murdered in the Holocaust.

Only 700 children came.

That was all who were left alive to take up our offer.

I know this story because 300 of them were sent to my patch to recuperate and became known as the Windermere boys.

This act was not an aberration; this was instinctively consistent with British values.

He recalls how Britain also took in refugees in the 1930s, and when Idi Amin expelled the Asians from Uganda.

I realise how much richer – culturally, socially, economically – our society is today, because of our generosity then.

What a lesson in seeing the best in people and not the worst.

What a lesson in liberalism.

As the party of outsiders, we will stand up for the outsiders.

And I will start today.

Winter is coming and the risks and hardships faced by those seeking sanctuary will only increase.

If you are shocked by the pictures on our TV screens today, just think how much worse they will look when the snows come to the Balkans.

If we don’t act now, many more will die.

So I am calling on our government to opt in now to the EU plan to take our share of the refugees to be relocated throughout the continent.

And I call on them to work with our neighbours to establish safe and sustainable reception centres, not only to process claims but to provide the shelter and security which the refugees so desperately need.

And I call on the government to provide the necessary financial support that our local authorities will need to help settle refugees, so as not to set community against community.

  • Farron says UK should opt in to EU refugee resettlement plan.

Farron says Cameron 'does not speak for Britain' on refugee crisis

And Farron turns on the government for its response to the crisis.

And what we’ve had from David Cameron is a careful calibration of what it will take to manage that story, the minimum effort for the maximum headlines.

And a policy which will not directly help a single one of the hundreds of thousands currently on the move across Europe.

It’s pitiful and embarrassing and makes me so angry.

Because I am proud to be British and I am proud of Britain’s values, so when Mr Cameron turns his back on the needy and turns his back on our neighbours.

I want the world to know, he does not speak for me, he does not speak for us, he does not speak for Britain.

This gets an even louder round of applause.

Fallons says refugees don't come to the UK to claim benefits

Fallon turns to the refugee crisis, and recalls his visit to Calais in the summer.

I met with people and heard their stories of harrowing risks, dangers fled and desperation for their children.

I have to tell you, not a single one of them mentioned coming to Britain to draw benefits.

Indeed, more than that. Not a single one of them had ever heard of Britain’s benefits system.

They wanted to come to Britain to be safe, to work, to contribute.

They see our country as a place of opportunity, a place where you can make the most of yourself, a place where you can be the best you can be – a liberal place.

Because I tell you frankly: you don’t risk everything clinging to the bottom of a truck if you’re looking for an easy life.

This gets probably the longest round of applause of the speech so far.

Farron says the Lib Dems 'speak for the outsiders'

Farron is back to the biographical spine running through the speech, and talks about becoming an MP.

But you know, I have never felt so common as the day I entered the House of Commons.

I have never met so many well-spoken, expensively educated people. It doesn’t make them bad people. But it does make me feel like an outsider.

And the Lib Dems are outsiders, he says.

Right from our foundation, we have identified with the needs and interests of those that do not hold power, who are excluded from privilege, the underdogs, the dispossessed – the poor, the migrant, the refugee - who simply want the chance to prove themselves on a level playing field.

Liberalism’s roots are buried deep in anti-establishment politics, opposing privilege.

We speak for the outsiders, for the governed not the governors. The voiceless and the voteless.

Farron says green industries will be at the heart of the new economy.

But what is the government doing?

Dismantling at breathtaking speed every policy Liberal Democrat ministers put in place to support green industries.

Driven by dogma and an obsession with short-term cuts, they are cutting off at the knees a sector which grew at more than 7 per cent a year from 2010 to 2013, compared with less than 2 per cent for the UK economy as a whole.

When Al Gore, John Gummer and the boss of the CBI all warn you you’re doing the wrong thing – which is what happened yesterday – that chance are, you’re on the wrong track.

Farron says the Lib Dems’ commitment to clearing the deficit by 2017-18 is right.

Not ending the deficit now means leaving the next generation to clear up our mess, and that’s simply unfair. By ignoring economic realities, Britain would be choosing more austerity, not less.

Farron says he wants 'an ambitious, active government'

Farron says the Lib Dems must be on the side of business.

We should have the best rail links, commit to being in the EU, and make superfast broadband universal, he says.

So when I say we want an ambitious, active government, prepared to invest in skills, homes and infrastructure, to free individuals to be the very best they can be, it is because I am a liberal, and to be a liberal is to support those with enterprise.

Farron says the Lib Dems must be 'immersed in our communities'

Farron says people in Westminster and out of touch with people in the rest of the country.

All too often the people of Westminster live in their own little Westminster echo chamber.

They’re not bad people, but they see the world only through Westminster eyes.

Farron says the Lib Dems must be “immersed in our communities”.

My approach – our approach - has always been, and will always be, different.

It is to be immersed in our communities, to be part of them, so that we can speak for them.

To fight with all our energy, to never go native, never be part of the furniture, never lose touch with reality.

It is often said that the other parties have vested interests, but that we have none.

Not true. We have vested interests too.

They are the people in our streets, our towns, our villages. The people in Britain who have no one to speak for them.

Our job is to speak up for those people. To defend their homes and their hospitals, their schools and their post offices, and to be their voice.

Farron is back to talking about his background. He went to university in Newcastle, got a job at Lancaster University, became an activist, and then Lib Dem candidate for Westmorland and Lonsdale, a seat the party had not won since 1906.

I might be biased, but it’s a blessed place to live, to raise a family, to run up the fells. To feel miniscule against the open skies, the vast lakes, the towering mountains.

And who needs focus groups when you can stand in Kendal market and find out exactly what people think… even if you don’t ask them.

Farron says Lib Dems will lead opposition to right-to-buy for housing associatuions

Farron says the Lib Dems want the government to build 300,000 homes a year.

We will give councils the freedom and power to borrow so they can start building again.

We will create 10 new garden cities with the infrastructure they need to thrive.

We will create a housing investment bank to bring in much more cash and give the industry the support and security it needs.

And we will lead the opposition to the forced sell-off of housing association properties.

Communities up and down this country have spent 25 years building housing association homes, picking up the pieces of Mrs Thatcher’s destruction of council housing, and we will not allow David Cameron to destroy that work too.

Farron says the Lib Dems must make housing a major campaigning issue

Farron says the Lib Dems must make housing a major campaigning issue.

People often talk about moving house being one of the most stressful experiences in life. But for millions of British people, without a stable or affordable home, that stress, that instability, that uncertainty is a debilitating reality, every single day.

And I will not accept it. We will not tolerate it, so together we will fix it.

Housing is the biggest single issue that politicians don’t talk about. Well, we are going to talk about it, campaign on it, go on and on and on about it, and make a difference to the millions who have been ignored.

Farron says that when he was 14 he saw the film Cathy Come Home, about homelessness. It had a great effect on him.

Cathy come home lit a spark in me – it made me angry, it energised me, it made me want to get up and get involved. And so I did, and I haven’t stopped.

He meets people desperate for housing most weeks as an MP, he says.

Access to affordable housing affects us all because it is the entry ticket to society: to security and stability, to work, health and community.

Because without secure, affordable and stable housing how can you be sure that you can send your kids to the same school one term after the next?

Farron is speaking about what he learnt from his upbringing.

All around me where I grew up in Lancashire I saw people who worked dead hard just like my parents - if they had work.

And otherwise they worked dead hard just to get work.

It was a discipline that was reinforced in us by good schools and great teachers, helping us achieve well beyond what was expected.

And I came to understand that individuals had to take responsibility for their own lives.

And I came to understand that our job - the Liberal Democrat’s job - is to give those who are able to take responsibility for their own lives, the chance to succeed.

But also I realised that inequality means that millions of people don’t have the chance to take that responsibility because they aren’t born to the right parents, in the right town or sent to the right school. That is utterly wrong.

It demeans us collectively

Damages us economically and

Disadvantages us all…

It is a waste of talent and a wasted opportunity. People deserve better.

Farron is talking about his family background.

His parents split up. He was brought up by his mum. They were on the breadline.

Mostly I saw how hard my parents had to work. My Dad was full-time in the building trade, and he made ends meet by DJing on Friday and Saturday night.

I have inherited all of his passion for music… and none of his talent.

But I learnt that for most people, success only comes from taking responsibility and making your own luck.

My Mum worked part-time on the checkout at a department store.

She couldn’t get more hours, so she took a risk, did a clerical qualification that took a year and then became a secretary at the local newspaper.

After a few years, things were still tight, so Mum took another massive risk. She went to university, aged 33, not easy with 2 kids.

She eventually became a university lecturer, and I’ve never been more proud as the day, a few years later, when I was with her as she got her PhD.

Farron says the Lib Dems lost because people did not know what their values were

Farron says the Lib Dems did not lose because of their values.

We didn’t lose the election because our policies weren’t good enough…. or because our manifesto wasn’t long enough.

We lost because people didn’t know who we were, what our values were.

So it’s time to tell people who we are. Let’s be liberals.

  • Farron says the Lib Dems lost because people did not know what their values were.

Farron says he wants the Lib Dems back in power “at every level throughout Britain”.

And we will start with next year’s elections for the Scottish Parliament, for the National Assembly in Wales, for the London Assembly, and for local government across the country.

If others wish to abandon serious politics, serious economics, that’s their lookout.

But you can be certain that the Liberal Democrats will occupy every inch of that progressive liberal space because you cannot change people’s lives from the glory of self-indulgent opposition.

Farron gets another music reference in.

You know, if ever you doubted the effectiveness of the Liberal Democrats in Government just look at what’s happening without us

In the words of Joni Mitchell

“Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got til its gone “

Except for one thing - we are not gone.

We may not be able to change our country from the top down, just for now, but we can change it from the bottom up…our party must do more than just survive, we must grow, we must thrive, we must rebuild.

Farron lists some of the Lib Dems’ achievements in government, such as the increase in the income tax threshold, children not being locked up in immigration centres, the pupil premium, more free school meals and same sex marriage.

(The last one is a tricky one for Farron, because he did not back the legislation.)

Farron says he is proud of what the Lib Dems achieved on government

Farron says it was tough being in the leadership contest with his friend, Norman Lamb.

During the campaign they spoke to thousands of members.

People said they were proud of their time in government.

You know, there are those that would like me to take this opportunity to distance myself from the past five years, to say it was all some dreadful mistake, to say: “I disagree with Nick.”

But I don’t… so I won’t.

I came into politics to change things, to make a difference, to make people’s lives better.

And to do that, you need the power to bring about change.

There is nothing grubby or unprincipled about wanting to win. Nothing noble about defeat – losing sucks, losing robs you of your chance to make people’s lives better.

What’s the point in being right if you never get to put your policies into action?

So I am proud of what we did in government and I am determined that we will return to government.

  • Farron says he is proud of what the Lib Dems achieved on government.

Farron recalls Nick Clegg’s speech on the day he resigned.

I can honestly say that no political speech has ever moved or motivated me more than Nick’s words that bleak morning.

I quoted it on the day I won the leadership election and I make no apology for quoting it again this afternoon.

Nick told us:

This is a very dark hour for our party but we cannot and will not allow decent liberal values to be extinguished over night.

Fear and grievance have won, liberalism has lost. But it is more precious than ever and we must keep fighting for it.

Well the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. And it turns out that I wasn’t the only one.

Up and down the country 20,000 people chose to stand up and say “No. Liberalism will not die. Not on our watch.”

Farron pays tribute to Charles Kennedy

Farron says the election result was “utterly devastating”.

And he pays tribute to Charles Kennedy.

All of that pales in comparison to the much greater tragedy just a few weeks later. The loss of Charles Kennedy. Charles’s death has robbed us of the sharpest mind, the wittiest tongue and the nicest bloke.

The 23 year old who came from 4th place to gain Ross Cromarty and Skye, that same Charles Kennedy who inspired so many who had doubts to support the merger of Social Democrats and Liberals.

Farron says one of his old friends from the band suggested they reform to enter X Factor.

I said, one: we’re 45, two: I’m a bit busy, 3: we’re still rubbish.

Farron jokes that X Factor is 'a terrible programme'

Farron has arrived on stage.

He starts by talking about joining the Lib Dems.

When I was growing up my school didn’t have a sixth form. I guess that’s because most of us didn’t do A levels. So I went to a separate sixth form college - Runshaw in Leyland - and, in my first week, I joined the Liberal Party.

He also joined a band, he says. “Those photos do exist,” he says, in a joke about David Cameron.

He has a confession to make, he says.

I’ve got a worse confession…On a Saturday night, I watch X factor…with the kids. It’s a terrible programme, but strangely compelling.

It is a desperately guilty pleasure - I have to cleanse myself by listening to Radio 6 for 2 solid hours afterwards.

(Some of my colleagues on other papers are writing up the speech as an attack on X Factor, I gather.)

Tim Farron's speech

Tim Farron is about to start is speech. First, in the conference hall, they are showing a video about him.

Now Wrigglesworth is demanding money with menaces.

Here’s Steve Bell on Tim Farron.

Lord Wrigglesworth, the Lib Dem treasurer, is now on stage doing a fundraising appeal before Tim Farron speeches.

If you are watching on the BBC Parliament channel and you can’t hear anything, that is because they won’t broadcast a political fundraising speech.

Sir Menzies Campbell, the former Lib Dem leader, has been talking about Tim Farron on the Daily Politics.

At the Lib Dem conference Sal Brinton, the party president, is handing out party awards.

Tim Farron is due to start speaking soon.

Tory party members are more rightwing than Ukip members

A party conference is one of the rare moments in the year when ordinary members get to play a visible role in a high-profile party event. A lot of assumptions are made about who members are, but facts are in relatively short supply. Thankfully, though, at a Lib Dem fringe event last night, two academics presented some research into shedding some light on this area.

Professor Tim Bale from Queen Mary’s University of London and Professor Paul Webb from Sussex University carried out a survey in May this year of almost 6,000 party members from the six main parties, as part of a research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Here are some of the key findings.

  • Conservative party members are more rightwing (measured according to how they define themselves) than Ukip members.
  • Labour party members are more leftwing (again, measured according to how they define themselves) than SNP members.
  • Ukip is the most male party, although all of the six main parties have more men than women as members.
  • The Greens are the best educated party, in terms of proportion of members who are graduates, although they are only just ahead of Labour and the Lib Dems.
  • The Lib Dems are the most middle class party, in terms of proportion of members who are ABC1. Ukip are the least middle class.
  • The average age of all party members is 51. The party with the oldest members is Ukip (average age 58) and the youngest party is the Greens (average age 42).

Here are some of the detailed figures.

Left/right (self-defined - with 0 as very leftwing, and 10 as very rightwing)

Overall average: 4.44

Conservatives: 7.76

Ukip: 7.34

Lib Dems: 4.1

SNP: 2.96

Labour: 2.39

Greens: 1.9

Gender

Overall proportion who are men: 65%

Ukip: 76% male

Conservatives: 71%

Lib Dems: 68%

Labour: 62%

Greens: 57%

SNP: 56%

Education

Overall proportion who are graduates: 45%

Greens: 56.4%

Labour: 56.3%

Lib Dems: 55.8%

SNP: 42%

Conservatives: 38%

Ukip: 23%

Class

Overall proportion who are ABC1: 68%

Lib Dems: 76%

Conservatives: 75%

Labour: 70%

Greens: 65%

SNP: 62%

Ukip: 60%

Bale and Webb are going to carry out more research later this year taking into account the fact that Labour’s membership has expanded enormously since these figures were produced.

Further extracts from Lord Ashcroft's biography of Cameron

The Daily Mail has another four and a half pages today from Lord Ashcroft’s biography of David Cameron. In news terms, it is starting to get a bit thin - one of the spreads is about Cameron being posh, and another is about colleagues thinking he does not believe in much - but the material is very readable and there are some interesting revelations. Here are five of them.

1 - Boris Johnson secured more than £90m for policing in London by threatening to disrupt the Conservative conference if he did not get the money, the book claims.

In 2011, with the economic recovery yet to take root, the Chancellor was desperate to have a ‘quiet conference’ with ‘nothing unexpected’.

He rang Mr Johnson to instruct him to behave, noting that in 2009 the Mayor had overshadowed conference by writing a newspaper column, published on the day of Mr Osborne’s own speech, demanding a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

The Mayor replied that he was staring at a ‘blank page’ for his latest column, and that his price for ‘no mischief’ was £90million extra for policing in the capital.

Before he put the phone down, the Chancellor had agreed to hand over £93million.

Mr Johnson told aides: ‘That was the best-paid column ever.’

2 - Margaret Thatcher thought Cameron was shallow. The book describes her reaction to the 2010 manifesto.

According to a well-placed source, she was certainly unimpressed by the title of Cameron’s first manifesto: ‘Invitation to join the Government of Britain’.

‘What is this? What is this?’ she spluttered on being shown a copy. ‘Invitation to join the Government of Britain?

‘People don’t want to join the Government of Britain. They want to elect the Government of Britain, for it to govern!””

And it says that Thatcher was disparaging about Cameron to friends.

Thatcher’s friends confirm that she never did warm to David Cameron.

‘She thought he was shallow, really. She’d say: “If you’re leader, you’ve got to believe in something,” ’ says one of her former confidants.

3 - In 1990, when Margaret Thatcher resigned and John Major, Douglas Hurd and Michael Heseltine were contesting the leadership, Cameron, who was working for the party at the time, told all three campaigns that he was backing them.

4 - Cameron agreed that Greg Dyke could be a joint Conservative/Lib Dem candidate for London mayor in 2008. Dyke was set to stand, but the Lib Dems backed out at the last minute. Later someone suggested that Boris Johnson should be the candidate. Cameron initially dismissed the idea out of hand, saying Johnson had ‘totally the wrong profile”, before he relented.

5- A former KGB officer has said the KGB did try to recruit Cameron when he visited the country as a teenager in 1985. After Cameron first talked about this meeting, and suggested that the KGB were trying to recruit him and the friend he was with, the Kremlin dismissed the story, saying the men who befriended the young Britons were homosexuals. But the book contains quotes from Igor Kuznetsov, a former KGB colonel, who claimed that he was involved and that it was a recruitment attempt.

George Osborne, the chancellor, is still in China. As the Press Association reports, he has announced that Britain is giving £3m to a Premier League scheme to train a new generation of football stars in the country. Osborne said the funding, which will pay to train 5,000 coaches in the country, would “significantly increase” Chinese awareness of English football.

George Osborne visiting an industrial area in the city of Urumqi in north west China earlier today, after he became the first serving government minister to travel to Xinjiang province. Even in China, he can’t resist a hi-vis jacket photo opportunity
George Osborne visiting an industrial area in the city of Urumqi in north west China earlier today, after he became the first serving government minister to travel to Xinjiang province. Even in China, he can’t resist a hi-vis jacket photo opportunity Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP who was in charge of policy under Ed Miliband, gave a speech on the state of the Labour party last night. It was remarkably blunt and challenging, and flatly contradicted Jeremy Corbyn’s ideas on a number of issue. Here’s an extract, but do read the whole thing.

Labour is now overwhelmingly a party of the socially liberal and progressively minded. They express Labour values that tend to be universalist principles such as equality, sustainability and social justice.

The party is losing connection with two thirds of the electorate who are either pragmatic in their voting habits or who are social conservatives and who value work, family, and their country. The idea that Labour can recover its lost voters by winning non-voters has no grounding in English political realities. To win Labour has to take them from the Conservatives.

Labour is dangerously out of touch with the electorate. It stands on the brink of becoming irrelevant to the majority of working people in the country. It must renew its essential character in the eyes of the great majority of the people. Not in isolation from them.

Jon Cruddas
Jon Cruddas Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

It was Lib Dem Glee Club last night. Here’s a flavour of it.

It would be wrong to say that the Lib Dems have been shunted into total irrelevance by their catastrophic performance in the general election, but they are uncomfortably close. With just eight MPs, they have become almost invisible in parliament. And their annual conference, which has already been running for four days, has not exactly gripped the attention of the nation.

But today the party has its best chance to make its case since Nick Clegg resigned as leader on the Friday morning after polling day. That’s because Tim Farron, the new leader, is making his main speech to the conference. Farron won the leadership partly because he’s a dynamic orator, and this will be the biggest speech so far of his career.

As usual, we’ve had some excerpts from what he’s going to say. My colleague Rowena Mason has written a preview story, and here’s how it starts.

Tim Farron will signal that he is prepared to go back into coalition with the Tories as he mounts a firm defence of Nick Clegg’s record in government, in his first party conference address as leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Farron will pitch himself in the political centre in the wake of Labour’s move to the left under Jeremy Corbyn. Despite the party losing all but eight of its MPs at the general election and dropping in the polls since then, Farron will declare himself proud of what the party did in government and express his determination to return there.

“You know, there are those that would like me to take this opportunity to distance myself from the past five years, to say it was all some dreadful mistake, to say I disagree with Nick. But I don’t and I won’t,” he will say on Wednesday.

Echoing the arguments of Blairites warning against Corbyn, Farron will say there is “nothing grubby or unprincipled about wanting to win, nothing noble about defeat”.

A senior Lib Dem source said the party was now economically closer to the Conservatives than Labour, which would have to change its Treasury policies before the Lib Dems accepted an alliance.

The speech starts soon after 11.45am. I will be covering it in detail, as well as posting reaction and analysis afterwards.

Before then, I will be covering other developments as the Lib Dem conference, as well as bringing you other breaking political news.

If you want to follow me on Twitter, or get in touch, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

Updated

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No, autistic people are not ‘mind blind’ – here’s why
For four decades, a controversial idea has shaped how autism is understood by researchers, healthcare professionals and the public: the claim that autistic people are “mind blind”. The phrase suggests an inability to grasp what others think or feel. It is simple, memorable – and wrong.
The Conversation
The Conversation
Demna brings sexy back in effort to reinvigorate Gucci
Designer’s first catwalk for the brand in Milan flirts with bad taste with short, tight dresses and a diamante G-string
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Neil Sedaka death: Legendary singer-songwriter behind ‘(Is This the Way to) Amarillo’ was 86
Sedaka was the songwriter behind a string of popular hits including ‘Breaking Up Is Hard to Do’ and ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
A 'Mansion Tax' in Los Angeles Is Worsening the City's Housing Crisis
A transfer tax on high-value real estate transactions is reducing the number of homes on the market and limiting new construction.
Reason
Reason
Pink ‘has moved to New York and is in running to take over Kelly Clarkson’s talk show’
After being spotted in the Big Apple, singer Pink is said to have moved to New York and is said to be in the running to take over Kelly Clarkson’s NBC talk show.
BANG Premier
BANG Premier
Sorry, ZeLink shippers, Zelda actor still thinks the 40-year-old pairing is better left "ambiguous": "If there are romantic undertones, it's left in an unrequited state"
"I have all sorts of personal theories," she says
GamesRadar
GamesRadar
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