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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: MPs have left Westminster for the summer and the Conservatives have got a bit of a spring in their step it must be said, so much so that some senior Conservatives are now urging the Prime Minister to break the relationship with the Liberal Democrats before the next general election, so can the coalition go the distance? In a moment we’ll be getting the views of the Liberal Democrat President, Tim Farron. Well I’m joined now from Cumbria by the Lib Dem President, Tim Farron, a very good morning to you. That point first, we’re reading on the front pages of some of our papers this morning that some senior Conservatives say end the coalition early. Could the Lib Dems live with that, would they still support the Conservatives right up to 2013?

TIM FARRON: Well I very much doubt that will happen and it’s a few minority voices I think in the Conservatives who I think are getting jumpy because as the coalition goes through the five year period that it rightly should last for in the interests of national stability and strong government, the Liberal Democrats will perhaps prevent them doing some of the more extreme things they’d like to do and indeed they we are doing some of the things that they’d like us not to do, not least giving tax cuts to 23 million of the lowest paid people in this country and tackling climate change which some of them feel inexplicably awkward about and increasing the state pension, things the Conservatives don’t normally do. So yes, there is a sense that Conservatives, a minority of them, resent being in power with the Liberal Democrats but that’s because the Conservatives did not win the last general election. The overwhelming majority of Conservative MPs have been good colleagues, I might well disagree with them politically but we’ve worked together in the national interest doing what grown-ups ought to do.

DM: Is it a source, Mr Farron, given what you mention there, is it a source of some frustration to you as a Liberal Democrat, you mentioned there climate change and raising tax thresholds but what people are talking about is the fact that unemployment is down, immigration is down, crime is down, the economy is perking up and all those things seem to be accruing in the Conservative’s balance sheet?

TF: Well I don't think so. All those things are great successes and the coalition government can claim credit for some of them, some of them I suspect like the falling crime figures are a longer kind of, almost a sociological shift but this happened on our watch so that’s nice to see. Undoubtedly, the fact that unemployment is coming down is down to the fact that Liberal Democrats took tough decisions for three years in the national interest, perhaps not in our own but in the national interest and have ensured that whilst the economy is now strengthening ever so gently, at the same time by making sure that the pension rises, by making sure low paid people are getting a tax cut, by making sure that we’ve got over a million new apprenticeships for young people in this country, that the economy is not just stronger but that society is getting fairer. That is something that would not have happened without the Liberal Democrats.

DM: We’re hearing all you say but it seems taking the credit for it – just have a listen, I’m sure you’ve heard it of course – David Cameron at the last Prime Minister’s Questions.

DAVID CAMERON PMQs: The deficit is down, unemployment is falling, crime is down, welfare is capped, Abu Qatada is back in Jordan – every day this country is getting stronger and every day he is getting weaker.

DM: That’s the Prime Minister, he left out the Liberal Democrat contribution to all those things.

TF: Well you do surprise me, it is absolutely staggering that the leader of the Conservative party should try and take credit for some of his part in government. That’s all fair game, he is entitled to say all that. We all know that if it wasn’t for the Liberal Democrats there wouldn’t have been the banking charges, the charges on the bankers, the tax on the bankers, there wouldn’t have been the introduction of fairness in the tax system, we wouldn’t have had the increase in the state pension or about £8 billion put into tackling climate change and to make sure there are hundreds and thousands of new jobs through the green economy. It has been a coalition deal, there have been things in this coalition that we have not liked and things that the Conservatives haven’t liked but the reality is that nobody won the last election, the British people collectively told us, look, work together, we can’t decide which one of you should run the country and we stepped up to the plate and did what normal grown-ups do in these times and worked together and treat each other in a decent manner. Of course there is going to be knock-about, I don’t blame the Prime Minister for trying to claim some credit for things. The reality is that these things, the improvement in the economy, the increase in fairness through fairer taxes, would not have happened without Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats.

DM: Okay, but in terms of the Liberal Democrats, we’re looking back over the last Parliamentary term in this programme before we break for the recess, it’s names, Liberal Democrat names that a lot of people are talking about the Liberal Democrats, about what went on in the last year – Lord Reynard, Chris Huhne, Mike Hancock, David Ward – it’s those kind of things that are sticking to the Lib Dems.

TF: Well it depends what people decide to talk about. When I go knocking on doors here in Cumbria or indeed across the rest of the country, people are talking about the issues that affect them in their lives. We heard David Cameron talking about improvement in the economy, there clearly seems to be some but it is important not to forget that the real issue that affects most people is their standard of living. There may well be a drop in unemployment but people’s wages are contracting, they’re certainly not going up and the reality is that people’s experience of daily life is what concerns them. They’re not worried about the soap opera that appears in the tabloid newspapers and my job, and the reason I got involved in politics in the first place, is to try and improve the lives of those people who live on the margins and those people who are in the middle in our society. That’s what bothers people, not the names of individuals in whichever political party.

DM: Some of the commentators are pointing to the role of Lynton Crosby, the Conservative’s election strategist, in getting them steadied and focused. Do you accept that and do you also accept that Mr Crosby needs examining about his influence or not in the whole issue of plain packaging for tobacco products?

TF: Well it’s always fun to give advice to another political party so let’s try. My view is that Lynton Crosby came and played a role in the 2005 election and helped the Conservatives come back from absolute disaster to just moderate disappointment and I think that’s the kind of thing Lynton Crosby is good at, getting to the Conservative’s core vote. The problem is that’s no way to win a general election and if all the Conservatives are going to do now is attach themselves to Nigel Farage and try and out-Farage Farage, they are going to do very, very badly at the next general election. As for the links with the tobacco industry, there is no evidence that Lynton Crosby has formally influenced government policy in all this but of course it looks dreadful and it is a reminder of why he’s wrong. You’ve got political parties, and I have to say it is mostly the other two, that are linked to vested interests and when you have the lobbying industry such as it is and you have got big organisations like the tobacco industry who are able to buy expensive and senior lobbyists and then one of them ends up working for the Conservative party, people are bound to ask questions. Even if there is no fire, there is plenty of smoke.

DM: Can I just ask you finally, Mr Farron, are you fully signed up as Liberal Democrats to the Prime Minister, we heard him this morning talking about child abuse on the internet and willing to legislate, he says, on the big internet providers if they don’t restrict it as much as they can. Two questions on that, do you think there is a potential implication for freedom of speech here and do you think it can actually be achieved?

TF: Well when we look at interfering in people’s use of the internet, and that is legitimate so long as it is not about making sure you are snooping on individual private citizen’s daily use, it’s about making sure where there is evidence for people to be pursued that they should be but I certainly agree with the call to Google and others to ensure that they step up to the plate and for example, use some of the suggestions that the Prime Minister made today. We mustn’t think however that will be the solution, that will prevent many people accessing such dreadful images but hardened people will find ways around it. We need to have more intelligent ways of attacking this disgraceful problem and recognising that despite the fact that it is in daily use these days, the internet is still a relatively recent phenomena in our society in terms of our laws and regulations catching up with it, we need to make sure we protect civil liberties but we also need to make sure, more importantly, that we protect children.

DM: Okay, great to talk to you Mr Farron, thank you very much indeed for your time. Tim Farron there, Lib Dem President.