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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Let’s discuss Nick Clegg and those calls for him to go from some members of the party in an online letter.  The party’s President, Tim Farron, joins me now from Pattingham in South Staffordshire.  A very good morning to you, Mr Farron, so let’s have a yes or no then from the party president, is Nick Clegg the man to lead the party into the next general election? 

TIM FARRON:  Yes, of course. 

DM: Why?

TIM FARRON: I guess you want more than that.  Okay, you didn’t want a one word answer so I’ll fill out in that case.  Well yes, of course he should.  In 2010 we made a decision to go into coalition and the alternative was to allow the Tories to have a minority administration, we’d have chaos in the markets, the economic situation would have got worse, there probably would have been an election in the autumn in 2010, the Tories probably would have won it – all those things would have been dreadful for Britain and the Liberal Democrats saved Britain from that and made sure there was an economic discovery.  Those tough decisions we made back in 2010, which undoubtedly have cost us votes and seats over the last few years including on Thursday night and over this weekend, those decisions nevertheless were the right thing for Britain and sometimes politicians should do what’s in the national interest, not just what’s in their own and personal interests.  Nick Clegg should undoubtedly stay and the Liberal Democrats should stay the course the government but that does not mean that we dismiss the concerns of the folks who have made their views known over the last day or so.  When I talk about times like this after an election if we’ve not done well, it’s a difficult time and I also hate the bit where we’ve all got to talk about losses and these great numbers, we’re talking about collateral damage and mid term or late term blues – these are human beings who work their socks off for their party and for their communities and did not deserve to lose and it’s important that we stand with those.  Most of those people, the overwhelming majority of those people, stand full square behind Nick Clegg now and those who don’t, well look I completely sympathise with their predicament, their situation.  I’ve lost myself in the past but it is important that we stand together as a party behind Nick Clegg’s leadership and go forward for 2015.

DM: But they are not all just damaged losers for the party, as you say they are campaigners as well, very active Liberal Democrats and they go along with you in the letter, I’m sure you’ve read it, on the analysis of the achievements that you Lib Dems claim from being in government but the crucial point about Nick Clegg they make is that he’s lost the ear of the public and all these elections seem to be quite a lot about understanding people’s concerns and they are saying that Nick Clegg is not the man who can command the attention of the public anymore for Lib Dem policies. 

TIM FARRON: Well I think it’s important just to remember that at any given time, I think eight days a week you could probably get a dozen Tory MPs who would say the same thing about David Cameron and ask him to be got rid of and you’re hearing rumblings about Ed Miliband as we speak as well and with the Liberal Democrats this doesn’t happen very often and when it happens we do it in a very collegiate and consensual way.  Our view is quite simply we collectively chose to go into coalition in 2010, one of the reasons why the Tories have been so divided, so much wrapped in a sack over last four years, is that they didn’t consent to go into coalition, David Cameron just told them it was happening.  Liberal Democrats, our whole membership, all our MPs, our Lords, our councillors, our members of the National Federal Executive, all voted at a special conference, all of us together, all our other members, to consent to going into this coalition so we stand and we fall together.  I think we could have predicted, and many of us did predict back in May 2010, that if we were to be in a coalition government it would damage us electorally and indeed those predictions have come true.  The question is, what that the wrong thing to do?  Definitely not.  Britain is recovering now, our economy is recovering because of what the Liberal Democrats did and had we not made those decisions back in 2010, Britain would not be recovering now, people’s lives would be worse. If you lose elections, and I’ve lost plenty I’m afraid in the past, you live and learn, if you lose elections sometimes you look for a quick answer to try and make things better, I wish there was one.  If there was one we’d all be behind finding it but there isn’t, we need to stand together as a party, work together and sure that we concentrate on the many high spots – and I’m bound to say this aren’t I – but amongst difficult results this week we have also seen some great results and fight backs in Newcastle, in Redcar, in Hull, Sheffield and Leeds, in places like Sutton and Watford, St Albans, my own place in South Lakes, in Winchester and so on.  These are places where we’ve proven that we can buck the trend, stand above the tide and ensure that we can go forward and win in 2015.   We will do what the Liberal Democrats have always done, buck the trend with pride and fight …

DM: I’m sorry Mr Farron, this isn’t a party political broadcast, we do have to have a conversation.  Do you regard these people as an insignificant minority within the Liberal Democrats? 

TIM FARRON: Well some of them are not party members.  That doesn’t mean that they are insignificant but they are not party members.  Most of them are party members and all of them are significant as individuals but I disagree with them, simple as that.   

DM: Oh good, we are having a conversation.  Therefore you talk about listening to them, in your first answer you talked about listening to them and understanding their concerns but that is the mantra from all the parties about the vast majority of people who voted in other ways, who mainly voted for UKIP.  The difference with the Lib Dems, and I got this from Nick Clegg when I interviewed him a week ago, you are not going to listen to them, you fundamentally disagree.  You want to stay in Europe, you’re the party of in. 

TIM FARRON: Yes, it depends who we are talking about now.  If we are talking about the wider population yes, there are some issues where you don’t agree with everybody.  When you are trying to look at what UKIP have achieved over the last few days and it is important to respect that and congratulate them for their successes, it’s important to remember that what they have done in terms of messages is essentially come up with the easiest, laziest, most populist things you can say and then say them and say them with impunity.  Sometimes in politics you have to stand up and say, no, that is wrong, staying in Europe is not only in Britain’s interests, it is the patriotic thing to do but it is also wrong for UKIP to have this challenge, the very un-British challenge to the diverse and inclusive cultural values that we have in this country and isn’t it interesting that Nick Clegg has been the only one with the bottle and the backbone to stand up to Farage and say you are wrong, you are fundamentally anti-British, UKIP, you are not standing for our values and Labour and the Tories have both of them shamefully ducked that question.  Both of them have been spineless in the whole of this election campaign and only Nick Clegg has stood proud as the one who’s fought against Nigel Farage and UKIP and we are collectively very proud of him.  It may have cost us some votes in the elections over this period with the Europeans being counted tonight, it may have cost us some votes but you have got to do the right thing in politics otherwise what is the point in being here.

DM: All right, I wanted to ask you about doing the right thing, a specific proposal, I just spoke to the Defence Secretary Philip Hammond and he said it is the Conservative party’s ambition to get a second reading for a private member’s bill enshrining in law a referendum after the next general election, whoever may be in power and it would then be up to the Liberal Democrat MPs in the House of Commons to vote against that, would you encourage them to do so?

TIM FARRON: Well we wouldn’t vote for that, it’s stupid isn’t it?  I think a referendum on our membership of the European Union is a wise thing to do at some point but the last thing you do is name a date.  If you really honestly want to get more powers back from the European Union and you wanted to stay in the European Union, which is basically the Conservative’s apparent position, the last thing you’d do – unless you are a fool or taking the British people for fools – is to the name the date.  It’s the equivalent of playing a game of poker and showing all the other players all your cards all the time, so either Philip Hammond is a fool or he thinks the British people are fools.  I suspect it’s the latter and he’s wrong.

DM: So it’s foolish to give the British people a vote? 

TIM FARRON: No, foolish to tell all the other people in the European Union, all the other countries in the European Union, the exact date by which you demand they should give you some concessions at which point you’ll still recommend a yes vote.  Why would they give us a crumb?  They’re not going to give us a crumb.   I don’t believe for a minute that Philip Hammond, who is the Defence Secretary and he knows a bit about negotiation, thinks for a second that that would be in Britain’s interests.  It is being done because the Tory party is split down the middle between sensible people like Nicholas Soames, the grandson of Winston Churchill, who knows that Britain’s place is at the heart of Europe and people who are extremist on the other side, who probably think that UKIP are too moderate.  The only way they can be kept together can be by this paper cover of a promised referendum in 2017 which is against Britain’s interests and would not get Britain a scrap of more power back from the European Union.  I think most sensible people can see that for what it is. 

DM: Okay, so pretty clear on that and if that vote came about it would be up to Labour then to decide whether they vote with you against it or not.   Can I ask you therefore about the whole issue of coalition?  There are those within your party who say next time round should the Liberal Democrats be in the position, you should go into the election saying you won’t form a coalition with anyone, we’re Liberal Democrats and we want our identity back.

TIM FARRON: Well it’s very important that we do protect our identity and there is no doubt whatsoever that being in coalition – and rightly, we did the right thing, I want to emphasise that – but being in coalition has undoubtedly blurred our identity, it would any party, particularly a third party going into coalition government for the first time in seventy years, but I also think you do what’s best for the country and at the next election we almost certainly will not have a choice between parties, it will be down to accepting the arithmetic in the House of Commons and accepting the will of the British people.  When we go into those negotiations I think it is probably right to say where a coalition government is a preferable outcome but we certainly shouldn’t go into negotiations with another party saying the only outcome will be a coalition government because if you did that, again like Philip Hammond and his rather foolish European negotiation suggestions, you are effectively saying to the other side in that debate, give us what you like because we’re going to accept it so we should at least leave open the possibility of not going into coalition.

DM: Okay, President, thank you very much indeed.  President of the Lib Demos of course it should be said, Tim Farron there in lovely Staffordshire.  I want to discuss that a little bit more now because I’m joined from Romsey in Hampshire by Sandra Gidley, she’s the former Lib Dem MP and she is one of the signatories of that letter calling on Nick Clegg to go.  A very good morning to you, Sandra Gidley, I don't know if you were able to hear what Tim Farron had to say there but let’s cut it down, he gave me a one word answer, he said you’re wrong.

SANDRA GIDLEY: I certainly … well he did give you a one word answer but it was a little slow in coming I felt.  I would have felt much more reassured if there had been an instant yes from Tim.  He may have been pondering whether to give a one word answer because politicians are renowned for not doing that but what I’d like to say in response to that, this is not about the pros and cons of the coalition, this is more about how we’ve handled the coalition and how we should be actually making more of a case about all of the very good things we’ve done in the coalition and we’re not able to do that at the moment whilst we have Nick as the leader associated with some of the negative aspects of the coalition, the broken promises.  People remember that when it comes to putting their cross on the paper so what we need over the next year I think is somebody to lead the party who is credible, who has questioned the coalition in the past, not seen to be in a love in with David Cameron and has the confidence of the party because the last election results, we can’t put any sport of spin on it, they were not good for us. When we lose more councillors than the Tories there is something else going on, you can’t put those statistics down to oh it’s just because we’re a party of government now, otherwise the Conservatives would have lost a lot more seats too so we have to think long and hard about this.  It’s not easy to say this because Nick did a stonking job for us at the last election but I don't think he’s the right face for the Liberal Democrats at the next election and many others sadly agree.

DM:     So who should it be? On the criteria you’ve laid out there, credible with the party and the public, criticised the coalition in the past, that really only leaves one man doesn’t it – Vince Cable.  

SANDRA GIDLEY: Well I think he would be a very good choice but it’s not down to me, it’s down to the electorate which are the Lib Dem members.  I didn’t sign that letter because I had a single face in mind, I think actually Nick would do … sorry, Vince would do an excellent job because he has been shown to be independent minded within the coalition and then when we see what we’ve got left after the next general election, the young Turks can fight it out after a sensible period of time to lead the party, if that’s what people want but at the moment I think it is going to be difficult to say yes, I want to lead the Liberal Democrats because so many MPs I think are frightened of losing their seats.  We have had the local election results, we did well in some areas but I don't think the European results tonight are going to be very good for us.  

DM: Okay, very good to talk to you, Sandra Gidley, thank you very much indeed.