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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, in the last parliament the Lib Dems had 56 MPs, some of the party expected to lose around half of those, something like that, but they never expected to lose as many as they did, down to single figures.  The party now has just eight MPs so will they ever return to being a major party in British politics. I am joined now by the President of the party, Baroness Brinton, Sal Brinton and a very good morning to you.  Do you see a way back from this?  

BARONESS SAL BRINTON: Well I do actually.  We’ve had a tradition of fighting back from pretty difficult positions and we already have the evidence for it.  In the last 48 hours since the polls closed over 5000 people have joined the party and the numbers are going up as we speak and that means our total membership is now up to 50,000 and rising.  So not even just members of the public are saying we want a Liberal voice in Britain and they are doing it in a very motivated way, coming straight on to the website and joining.  I have been talking to our candidates and some of our party chairs around the country, they are absolutely up and ready to go.  It’s been a very difficult night but one thing we are all clear about is that Britain needs a Liberal voice and we, the Liberal Democrats, are there to provide that.

DM: It’s a pity they didn’t join before the general election isn’t it?  But where will this revived Liberal Democrat party stand in the political spectrum from your point of view because if Labour, when they recover from their defeat go in a more Blairite direction, let me put it that way, back into the middle ground, Mr Cameron governs as a one nation Conservative, what room is there for the Liberal Democrat argument?

BARONESS SAL BRINTON: Well actually there is very distinctly a role for a party that is in favour of equality and fairness and justice and rather than looking at a left/right spectrum, the Liberal Democrats have always preferred to look at liberal versus authoritarian structure and the things that we stopped the Conservatives doing in the last five years we are beginning to see already, Theresa May has talked about reintroducing the Snoopers Charter, which will affect everybody’s rights to keep their private conversations and emails secret from the state.  They are also threatening to get rid of the Human Rights Act, that’s absolutely fundamental, British liberty is about your rights as an individual and they want to curtail those.  We will of course be championing the opposition to those.  

DM: And what about leadership?  You need a symbol at the head of the party and you’ve got seven middle aged white men to choose from.  

BARONESS SAL BRINTON: Yes and the voters I’m afraid gave us that choice after the other night but we have seven people who have a great deal to offer, distinctive messages and we’re going to open the campaign for nominations next week, the result will be in mid-July and it will be very interesting to see which of these seven put themselves forward for the campaign.  

DM: Does your party really have, I mean it is almost an issue of the mental energy to do it all again, to claw your way all the way back up that snakes and ladders of politics board and you are right back to zero.  

BARONESS SAL BRINTON: We’re not back to zero, we’re certainly down to a low number but the one thing that we’ve seen over the last two days has been the party saying actually we’re not just down and out, we’re ready to start fighting again now and I’ve already heard of groups that are going to go out and start door knocking and talking to people in their areas.  We know we have some major elections to fight next year, the Scottish parliament, the Welsh assembly, the London assembly as well as a very large number of council seats.  We don’t have to wait, we’re out there campaigning now.  

DM: But you have to understand where your vote went don’t you and the Liberal Democrats task is almost more complicated than any other party’s because just looking at it, I’ve been looking at some of the statistics and of course you lost a lot of votes to the Conservatives, your former coalition partners, but you lost votes to UKIP, Lib Dems went to vote for UKIP, you lost votes to the Greens perhaps more understandable that but how do you reform the party, how do you appeal to all those groups?

BARONESS SAL BRINTON: Well I think the people, well I can’t say for certain but I think the people who went to the Greens and some who went to UKIP are probably what would be described as our traditional protest vote.  I think the disappointing thing was the Conservative message over the last few days about only 23 to a majority combined with if you don’t vote Conservative the SNP will be running the country with Labour and that was really resonating on the doorsteps.  So I agree with Andrew Rawnsley’s comment that he made to you earlier on your programme that actually people made up their minds in the last few minutes in the polling booth because although we knew it was very tight, it was the scale that astonished us on the day.   

DM: A lot of people, not Lib Dem supporters necessarily, said that their hearts went out to what Mr Clegg went through and of course he won his seat, but is there part of you, is there part of Mr Clegg that thinks thank you very much Conservatives, look what we did for the good of the nation, we went into coalition, we formed a stable government, people said it wouldn’t last five years, it did and a lot was achieved on our watch and this is how you thank us.  You campaigned so hard against us, you took so many of our seats.

BARONESS SAL BRINTON: I’m not the only Liberal Democrat who has had messages from senior Conservatives, not quite apologising but being really shocked by the result.  They certainly didn’t expect the scale of it and actually I think that’s been one of the problems, that actually the unintended consequences of the loss of so many Liberal Democrat MPs has for the moment changed the landscape but the public aren’t prepared to let that go and that’s why the astonishing news of so many people joining the party and continuing to join by the minute is reassuring and actually will help us to go out and fight again and come back.  There are plenty of seats where we are in a strong second position, I think that our traditional voters will not be happy with the very large cuts that the Conservatives are about to introduce let alone the Conservatives split attitude on Europe and the other things I’ve mentioned already, the Human Rights Act and other freedoms and liberties that we don’t just assume in this country, we hold very dear as part of our principles of being British.

DM: Sal Brinton, it’s been great talking to you, thank you very much indeed.  Baroness Brinton there, the President of the Liberal Democrats.