Tim Farron’s speech to the Lib Dem conference seems to have gone down well with those in the hall, which probably means that it did the trick, given this was his first conference as leader and the party’s first conference since its defeat. But given Farron wants to rebuild his party by appealing to those who no longer feel that Labour is their home, or those who worry that the Tories are going a bit further than they’d like, his speech wasn’t quite as effective as it could have been.
Sure, he delivered it well – particularly when he was talking about housing and the refugee crisis, where he became passionate and angry and quite thunderous for a cheeky chappie who liked to talk a lot about his band – but some of the words that he delivered were rather poorly chosen.
Towards the end, Farron started to talk about the sort of person who should join the Liberal Democrats.
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