I’ve read that you were part of the front bench team that asked Charles Kennedy to resign. I was wondering with such a quick turnover of leaders if you would remake that decision?

It was the right decision at the time. It was absolutely the right decision at the time and it was long overdue. So you cannot rewrite history and say well this happened so maybe we should review. You don’t make a decision like that lightly. There is a lot of agonising and heart searching. I would still say that it was the right decision. I don’t rule out Charles coming back to the front stage potentially but you know the party isn’t one person.

Going back to the subject of the Liberal Leadership, there have been quite a number of liberal leaders over the last few years, three if we include Vincent Cable the current Acting Leader.

We’re now electing our third leader and it’s been 18 months since the last one left. That’s the case. We haven’t got a leader at the moment.

Can this be considered good for the party in any way?

It’s a side issue. What’s important for the party is that people can concentrate on our policies so obviously a change in leadership is a diversion from that but in other ways it’s not a bad thing as we have the candidates and interest in them talking about them and Lib Dem policy, so every cloud has a silver lining.

You are supporting Chris Huhne in the Leadership contest.

Yes, I supported him last time as well.

I was wondering why you felt that Chris Huhne is the man to lead the Liberal Democrats forward?

I’ll tell you exactly why. He’s extremely bright and talented. An exceptional individual, not many people have had three successful careers. He was an award winning journalist; he built up an economist firm in the City from almost nothing, and has had a successful political career. That range of talents, I think is almost unmatched in Parliament I’d say, out of all the Parties.

There have been comments that both contenders, Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg, are very similar. How would you address that issue?

Oh, that old chestnut. It’s all the Press want to write at the moment, they’re so unimaginative. What they’ve done is look at the CV’s; they’ve both been to Westminster school, they’ve both been MEP’s but they are very very different personalities and they’ve had very different work careers. It’s a bit like the story of Ming being too old, I just wish they’d move on or be a bit more imaginative.

It’s been a theme, ever since they put their C.Vs together and then they discovered they’d both married foreign wives. The wives are very different as well. The strengths and weaknesses are not the same.

Being that Chris Huhne has a majority of less than 600 votes in his constituency, could a future issue be that he could conceivably win the Leadership and then lose his seat at the next election?

Well, I think that this one is over hyped. If you look at the vote of our past Party leaders it has gone up substantially as the result of national exposure so Chris doesn’t take anything for granted. I will point out to you that since Chris has been the MP, they have won council seats in his patch against both the Conservatives and Labour and gone from strength to strength and a lot of that is down to Chris’s drive and enthusiasm. It’s one of the reasons I want him in charge of the party so he can bring that drive and enthusiasm to a much wider group of people.

One more question on Leadership. Were you tempted to run yourself?

Absolutely not. I think it’s a thankless task. It’s just not a job I would want to do.

If Huhne did win the leadership would you expect to be moved from your position or would you like to remain there?

That’s obviously up to Chris. My personal view is I’m quite happy where I am. Although the one job I would prefer would be leading the Health team rather than on it. But I wouldn’t be heart broken if I stayed where I was, in fact I’d be delighted because I much enjoy what I’m doing.

There have been concerns from students about increasing fees, could you lay out your own, and your party’s position?

As you know we opposed tuition fees and we opposed top up fees. The policy is being reviewed, we don’t know what will come out of that but as somebody who benefitted personally from the full grant in the 70s and managed to leave university in the black, I worked during the holidays obviously but I did not have any financial concerns. But for the family I came from I would not have gone to university with thoughts of overdraft and debt hanging over me. It wasn’t the sort of thing you did in my family so it is a barrier.

There are several halls of residence in your constituency

Yes. We went round putting up posters and leaflets. In the past it’s been hard to contact students and I think it’s important that they know who their MP is.

Do you believe there is a successful dynamic between students and residents?

What the residents would like is for students not to drink and to go home to bed with their coco at half ten every night and not disturb them. Actually, let’s live in the real world students are entitled, they’re young and most older people seem to have a habit of forgetting they were young once as well. I can remember times when I went out as was a bit noisy, it’s a fact of life. Unfortunately there are small number of students and they’re not always students, they’re sometimes other young people who are off an age and are identified as such who have in the past been a little bit more than anti social and that’s spoiled it for them. I did write a piece in the Echo which said that it should be remembered that the students are here because they’re hardworking and have achieved something so isn’t okay for them to let their hair down occasionally.

With your seat being held by less than a percent, will you hold it at the next election?

There’s no reason why I shouldn’t.

In the event of a hung Parliament, would the Liberal Democrats form a coalition with one of the other parties?

At the moment our position is no. But we would defiantly want to talk to both parties about what polices we would support. My personal view is that a formal coalition is probably not helpful, but never say never because when I was a Councillor we were in a joint administration with the Tories and we managed to get a lot of our policies through and the Tories discovered that the world did not end. 

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