New Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron outlines his vision

MOMENTS after discovering that his political dreams had come true, Tim Farron gave his first in-depth interview as leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Speaking in his Portcullis House office less than 10 minutes after his agent, Paul Trollope, broke the news, the MP said: “I’m genuinely honoured and humbled to be elected leader of the party I joined as a 16-year-old.

“This is a big deal. It will be a great responsibility and I will work tirelessly to fight for Liberal values.

“There are real challenges ahead but we have shown in Westmorland how we can succeed and we want to make a difference all over the country.”

Despite his new role, which will involve him spending a lot more time in London, Mr Farron announced that he would ‘always be Westmorland’s man in Westminster’ and never the other way around.

He said: “Westmorland will always be my home and will remain my priority. This will never change. I will keep working to bring jobs, investment and improve local services and I will use this national platform to do that.”

I asked Mr Farron, who is regarded as more left wing than his predecessor Nick Clegg, how he will be putting his own stamp on the party that suffered humiliation on General Election night in May.

“I will make the case for a fairer, greener, freer Britain,” he said. “A liberal society is one in which diversity and individuality are not just tolerated but actively supported. This has always been the great cause of Liberalism.

“We must stand up for freedom – the right of people to live their lives free to say what they think and to protest against what they dislike, free to live their lives according to their values, free of a controlling, intrusive state and of a stifling conformity.

“Equality is important because poverty and ill-health, poor housing and a lack of education are all the enemies of freedom. An unequal society is weaker not just for those at the bottom of the pile but for everyone.

“Out-of-control inequality is a threat to democracy and everyone is entitled to equal respect, whatever their characteristics or way of life.”

The 45-year-old outlined his vision for a new economy, one which he hopes is ‘low-carbon, high-skill, innovative, enterprising and resource-efficient’.

He said: “This is what we need to generate jobs, prosperity, opportunity and wealth in an economy where the government thinks long-term and new ideas flourish, where wealth and opportunity are spread, a government open to new economic thinking, ditching the failed orthodoxy that brought us the Great Crash and embracing new ways of thinking in which ethics matter.”

Mr Farron, it appears, wants to throw open the doors of democracy to as wide a cross-section of society as possible.

“Democracy is not just a dry mechanism for counting heads but much more than that: a spirit of equality, openness and debate, a coming together to decide our future together fairly and freely, without being dominated by entrenched interests or the power of money,” he said.

“A state that supports freedom has to be a democratic state, with power dispersed as widely as possible and built up from below.”

He went on to announce that he would ‘deliver a new federalism’ and hailed it as being ‘the only way to preserve the United Kingdom’.

A supporter of the Proportional Representation election process, Mr Farron stated that he wanted ‘a new voting system where parties can’t win power on just 37 per cent of the vote’.

The new Lib Dem leader also outlined his reasons for wishing to preserve the Human Rights Act.

He said: “The Act lies at the heart of Britain’s commitment to human rights and must be defended because there are some things no government should ever be allowed to do to anyone, because the rule of law is the bedrock of freedom and prosperity and because people are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect.”

In addition, the father-of-four vowed to prioritise fairness and quality of life ‘because some things – the beauty of the natural world, music, poetry, art and popular culture – matter more than profit or growth’.

Nationalism, Mr Farron believes, is a force for division, aggression and intolerance.

He said: “We must fight for membership of the European Union and, within the Union, fight for democratic reform.”