Facing the wrath of fiery Tim Farron
THERESA May has been branded ‘nasty, heartless and cruel’ over her plan to make more elderly people in England pay for care in an outspoken attack by Lib Dem leader Tim Farron.
In a provocative move aimed at reviving the Lib Dem campaign, Mr Farron said the elderly had been warned: ‘Compassionate Conservatism is dead.
‘If you have dementia, Theresa May is coming for you. Your house is up for grabs.’
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, he threw Mrs May’s 2002 declaration that the Conservatives had become ‘the Nasty Party’ back in her face: ‘She’s making the Tories nastier than ever. David Cameron may have tried to soften them with a Blairite conservatism, but that is gone.’
Mr Farron was speaking in Stockport during a break in canvassing on Friday. His campaign has struggled to take off after he was quizzed over his devout Christian faith and was forced to say he did not disapprove of gay sex. Would he be comfortable if any of his children told him they were gay?
‘I love my kids and, whatever they do with their lives, I will be there for them.’
Like fellow embattled leader Jeremy Corbyn, Mr Farron sees Mrs May’s plans for the elderly south of the Border as a chance to make up lost ground.
He shudders at the boyhood memory of visiting his late railwayman grandfather Tom, who had Alzheimer’s, in a care home.
‘It was horrific. I can still smell it now,’ he says.
Father of four Mr Farron, 47, also helps wife Rosemary organise home care for her father, who has dementia. He says Mrs May’s proposal would ‘punish people like my grandpa today. It is the most heartless thing I have seen’.
Lake District MP Mr Farron says the scheme was dreamed up by rich southern Tories. ‘Most of the Conservatives who put this manifesto together don’t have to bother about this kind of thing,’ he sneers. ‘It shows the hardness of Mrs May and her cruel party. She thinks she’s already won and can do what she likes.’
But isn’t it also why her ratings are so much higher than his woolly Lib Dems, because she is willing to make tough decisions? ‘There’s nothing tough about using people with dementia to balance the books,’ he fires back.
Passionate EU supporter Farron had hoped to ride a Lib Dem election tidal wave of fellow ‘Remainers’ who want to reverse Brexit. Instead, he has been left becalmed as most appear to have decided it is a fait accompli and that dogged Mrs May is more likely to browbeat Brussels into giving us a decent deal than anyone else.
Farron denies Nick Clegg’s disastrous U-turn over tuition fees in the Tory-Lib Dem Coalition still haunts his party.
Earlier this week, a poll said he was seen as ‘weird’ by voters. He hits back with a series of digs at May and Corbyn: ‘As the only northern and working-class leader with a hinterland, my football, music, faith and family, not a privileged background: yes, that makes me weird for a politician.’