Tim, nice but...

I forced myself to watch my local MP Tim Farron address the Liberal Democrats at their annual conference because I was interested in what he had to say.  He had quite a lot to say as it turned out but I will limit myself to those bits which directly concern his attitude to the Labour Party, otherwise we will be here all day.

He had a lot to say about the EU and how he felt a sense of bereavement when we voted to leave.  In a roundabout way he compared it to the death of his nan, which I think might be pushing it a bit, and I would be interested to know what his nan thinks about this.  He is after a quite vocal christian and presumably believes in an afterlife.  I wouldn't mind being a fly on the wall when he gets to meet her again. As my local MP I asked him to support the bill on assisted dying, but as a christian he refused to do so.  Is this a conflict of interest between Liberal and religious values?

He attacked the Tories as one would expect and then he turned his attention to the Labour Party. Or rather he didn't.  He turned his attention to Jeremy Corbyn.  He has obviously seen how well personal attacks have worked out for Owen Smith and sought to emulate him.

Almost his first sentence claimed that Corbyn was a Marxist who had seized the means of production, and then he had some very cheap digs at Momentum Kids, implying it was a type of brainwashing.  I wonder if he supports the idea of Sunday Schools or the Boys Brigade. But then they are all right because their brainwashing is different. It's christian brainwashing.

He then attacked Corbyn for not providing an effective opposition, citing the internal struggles within the party as the reason.  I wonder who have caused these internal divisions?  It must be Corbyn as he is clearly a Trot who believes in permanent revolution.  It obviously has nothing at all to do with the PLP members who refused to work with him and instead challenged his leadership. 

He then, and I could hardly believe what I was hearing, said that if the Labour party weren't going to be the official opposition then it was up to the Liberal Democrats to fulfil that function.  What. All eight of them?  You gotta larf.

He then went on, get this, to big up Tony Blair.  He did say that he was proud to march alongside Charles Kennedy in the anti war march, and supported Vince Cable when he attacked bank de-regulation so he didn't give him his full and unreserved support but he did make an analogy which I feel fell on rather baffled ears in the conference hall.  He compared Tony Blair to the Stone Roses.  'Like the Stone Roses', he said, 'I preferred the early work'.  From their response to this gem I would guess that the majority of the delegates weren't entirely sure who the Stone Roses were, and what their early work consisted of.  Still, never mind Tim, nice to be down with the kids, eh?  He praised things like the minimum wage, investment in the NHS, school building and working tax credit. Most of all he praised that fact that Tony Blair was in government.  He justified the fact that his own party went into coalition with the Tories on the grounds that power is paramount. He fancies a big ministerial limo and an office in Whitehall.  He didn't have one last time because he was hanging back but this time he won't.  A sniff of power and he'll be there like a rat up a pipe.

He did however, in the midst of all this hero worship, gloss over the implications of the Iraq War and the rise of Daesh; the fact that the bank deregulation pretty much brought the entire global economy to its knees; the fact that much of the investment in the NHS was took place under the Private Finance Initiative, a policy which Labour opposed in opposition, but embraced wholeheartedly once in government; the establishment of academies; and the fact that working tax credits were merely a way of subsidising employers who paid low wages.  It's rather like the 'what have the Romans ever done for us?' scene in Life of Brian, only in reverse.  Wasn't Tony great, except...  Well at least he didn't eat anybody's baby.

Now.  Let us examine Farron's approach.  For a start he launched a personal rather than an ideological attack on Labour.  This is to a certain extent because many of his policies do not differ to any great degree to those of Corbyn.  Difficult therefore to rubbish them although there seem to be differences of emphasis and of how some things may be achieved. Both men however have recognised what a parlous state the country is in and both see the need to reverse the excesses of the Tory years.

There is another good reason for this.  What he quite clearly was doing was saying to those in the Blairite, to use his own words, wing of the party, look, when Corbyn wins again there is room for you in our party. He knows that many of them dislike Jeremy Corbyn intensely, he even mentioned some by name.  His vision is clearly to create a new super-party of the Centre, leaving the Labour party languishing on the fringes of the left.

Will this work?  I don't know.  Some might be persuaded across.  But would they want to put their names behind a brand which is still pretty toxic, and also would they be happy with this chirpy Johnny-come-lately northerner as their leader?  When the Gang of Four split from the Labour Party in 1981, they at least were in charge of the newly formed SDP.  Would defectors be happy to take subservient roles because I don't see Farron stepping aside and letting one of them become leader?

As a leader's speech I thought it was pretty good.  He spoke well and enthusiastically and quite honestly most of the things he suggested were sensible and in other circumstances might have appealed to me.  He would have certainly got my vote over that of any Tory, which is basically the choice here where I live  But I take issue with a few of the things he said.  

Firstly he resorted to a personal attack on the Labour leader, which tells me he both fears him and has no real substantial grounds for opposing him.  To quote Margaret Thatcher who said, 'I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left,' I think his anti Labour political arguments are pretty thin.  He of course would disagree but then 'he would, wouldn't he?' to quote again, only this time from Mandy Rice-Davies, an altogether different kettle of fish.

Secondly he praised Blair while saying he was proud to march alongside Charles Kennedy in the anti-war march.  Now forgive me if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure that a certain Jeremy Corbyn was a founding member of the Stop the War Coalition, was vocal in his condemnation of the war and also marched against it.  The Lib Dems moreover were late converts, looking for more backing from the UN before they fully committed themselves to it. Strange that Mr Farron should not have remembered that.  

And thirdly he tried to perpetuate the myth that the Corbyn supporting wing of the party do not really want to be in government.  Bollocks.

As far as I am concerned, if MPs on the right of the party want to join the Lib Dems then let them. At the next General Election it will solve the thorny problem of re/deselection.  The Labour Party can put up another candidate and win the seat for Labour once again.  The Lib Dems will be back where they started, and those disloyal MPs will be unemployed and available for Bake-Off and Strictly.  It's a win-win situation.