Speaking on BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show, Farron said the “tragedy” of the Labour party “choosing to go off down a populist, I would say unelectable route” had left a vast gap.
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The Lib Dem leader, who is attending his second party conference as leader which kicks off today (17 September), is expected to suggest in a speech on Tuesday that Brexit Secretary David Davis will end up resigning from his job.
When the Liberal Democrats were founded in 1988, as a merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party, Labour was moving firmly to the political centre ground after its general election defeat of 1987.
The party has put together a panel of senior doctors and experts to examine the case for a “dedicated NHS and care tax”. “If the only way to fund a health service that meets the needs of everyone is to raise taxes, Liberal Democrats will raise taxes”.
Tim Farron will seek to use his keynote conference speech to position the Lib Dems as the only alternative to the Conservatives.
Fantasy? Maybe not. The Lib Dems lost swathes of seats in their South West former heartlands in 2015 to the Conservatives.
But that increase hides the huge task they face to rebuild their parliamentary representation at Westminster where they now have eight MPs.
Mr Farron will talk about his struggle to find appropriate care for his own grandfather, who lives with Alzheimer’s.
“I don’t go making pronouncements on theological matters”. “It’s not civilised to let people slip through the net”.
“So it’s nice that they’ve got a new leader who is actually new. But more grammar schools are not the answer”, he will say.
“And what are we doing, in 2016, threatening to relegate 80 per cent of our children to education’s second division by returning to the 11-plus?” he will say.
Nick Clegg has defended the Lib Dems’ policy of seeking to block Britain’s departure from the European Union by demanding a second referendum, after Vince Cable said such a move would be disrespectful to voters.
“As Neil Kinnock says, we might have a Conservative government for the rest of our lifetimes, unless the Lib Dems can step up and fill the space the Labour Party has deserted”. “And the gap there for a liberal party with a clear plan for how Britain should operate in the world now is vast”. We know what we want and we know where we want to take our country. I reckon, honestly, that three quarters of them could have been persuaded to vote Remain up until about two or three weeks out.
“We trusted the British people on departure in the referendum last June, we should now trust them with destination”.
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Former party leader and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, who has returned to the Lib Dem front bench as Brexit spokesman, told the party conference the Tories were “up Brexit creek” and that “never mind a paddle, they don’t have a canoe”.
