Election: Just Who is the Lib Dem’s Tim Farron?

Before 2010 nobody needed to know who the Lib Dem leader was. But then Nick Clegg starred in the televised leadership debates, the Coalition Government was born and suddenly we had three party leaders to keep up with. Disillusioned voters crushed Clegg’s party in 2015 but now the Lib Dems are the biggest national party offering an alternative to Brexit so we have to go once more into the amber breach and ask “who the hell is Tim Farron?”

During two years as Lib Dem leader Farron has avoided the credibility problems of Jeremy Corbyn without ever cutting through to project himself clearly onto the national debate. With Theresa May now relentlessly projecting herself as a “strong and stable” leader Farron comes across more as a quirky and often contradictory figure still trying to get his bearings. A vegetarian and animal-lover, Farron is a former wannabe pop star who only ever wears Doc Martens but he has recently gained attention for his evangelical Christian views.

Born in Preston, Lancashire, Farron was raised by his mother after his father, a builder’s labourer, walked out. He first became passionate about politics at the age of 14, when Ken Loach’s gritty TV play “Cathy Come Home” inspired him to join the homeless charity Shelter. He signed up to the Liberal Party at 16 but had to fit party meetings around his attempts to become a pop star. The teenager was frontman of a New Order-style New Romantics band known first as “The Voyeurs” and then “Fred the Girl”. Farron wrote some of the songs, which are apparently still kicking about on the internet. Thankfully there are photos of Farron and his bandmates, with the leader styling out his mum’s hat Donovan-style. According to his bandmates, Farron made the ideal leader because of his confidence and comfort with rejection – not exactly reassuring for today’s Lib Dem supporters.

While studying politics at Newcastle University he became the first Lib Dem to lead the university’s Union Society. At just 21 he stood for parliament in North West Durham and came third behind the sitting Labour MP and a 35-year-old Theresa May, who was making her own first bid for the House of Commons. In effect a career politician, Farron served on local councils while seeking a winnable seat. He worked as a university and college administrator until becoming an MP in 2005.

Firmly on the left of the Lib Dems, Farron was never promoted to the ministry by the more conservative Nick Clegg during five years of Coalition Government. A constant irritant to Clegg, he was described by senior colleagues as treacherous and over-ambitious but built support among the party membership by being willing to defy the Coalition Government. He was one of only two Lib Dem MPs to oppose the bedroom tax and he voted against increasing university tuition fees in 2010, insisting that it was a matter of integrity for the party to keep its pre-election promises. When the Lib Dems were trounced at the 2015 election, plunging from 57 MPs to just eight, Farron was left with the party’s safest seat and became leader.

Married with four children, Farron was baptised as an evangelical Christian at the age of 21 and says he has been devout since his early 30’s. Having abstained on some votes on gay rights, he dissembled when asked in a 2015 interview about his personal beliefs on gay sex, simply stating “we’re all sinners”. When he was asked again last month he avoided the issue once more, saying he wouldn’t spend crucial election time “talking theology or making pronouncements”. Celebs and supporters took to social media claiming he was a fundamentalist, homophobic and out of touch. The 46-year-old has since stated that he doesn’t believe gay sex is a sin.

Farron’s most astute political decision as leader has been to position his party of just eight MPs as the natural home of anti-Brexit diehards. He has also made a firm pitch for social liberals who believe, for instance, that the UK should take more refugees. May’s decision to avoid televised campaign debates has robbed Farron of the national showcase that helped propel Clegg into power in 2010 but under Farron the Lib Dems have smashed their membership record set in the 1990s.

Another 5000-plus people joined up on the day the snap election was called. Still dismissed by many as a lightweight, he is well placed to regain seats across the country on June 8 without quite undoing all the damage of 2015. While Tim Farron has little chance of ever reaching the power or popularity that Clegg once enjoyed, he is also unlikely to lead his party to the sort of humiliation it suffered under Clegg two years ago or that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour could be about to endure.

 

by Jo Davey

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