You wouldn’t know it from his inauspicious arrival in a teal-coloured family estate car, but the leader of the Liberal Democrats is on a mission to remould British politics into a yellow-coated liberal ‘Nirvana’.

Tim Farron certainly doesn’t have Theresa May’s air of technocratic monotony, nor David Cameron’s aloofness; his oratory skills are superior to both. Tim is keen to assure his credentials as not being a member of the political elite, coming from a modest background in comparison with that of his predecessor, Nick Clegg, as well as some of his Conservative colleagues. Overwhelmingly he puts across a sense of conviction and a genuine commitment to his progressive agenda.

The Union is more or less at capacity to hear Tim’s thoughts on Brexit, the Liberal Democratic comeback (which is just around the corner, apparently) and the refugee crisis. There are no ‘taking points’, or generic political statements, just unfettered and sincere political venting at social injustice and government irresponsibility. In fact, Tim is disarmingly honest and sanguine, offering a passionate defence of Gary Lineker’s vilification by certain British tabloids, followed by a confession of his fondness for David Cameron.

This was a barnstorming speech with lofty ambitions of a Dutch-style political system dominated by liberal parties. Tim’s vision of an end to Conservative hegemony was so persuasive I almost believed him.

In the more tranquil setting of the Union library I am permitted precisely five minutes to grill the leader of Britian’s most over-looked political party. Tim is on his iPhone expressing raw excitement at the news that the Conservatives will not place a candidate against Zac Goldsmith in the forthcoming Richmond Park by-election, which he describes as simultaneously “peculiar” and “very interesting”.

We go back to 2015, political millennia ago, and the Liberal Democrats’ spectacular climbdown from coalition partners with 57 seats (one of which was Cambridge), to political minnows with a mere eight constituencies. I ask him what went wrong in Cambridge, and across the country: “First of all, if you look at the boundary changes, Cambridge is now a notional Liberal Democrat holding, and we went very marginally wrong, we were very close to hanging on to the seat here.”

“What went wrong is that essentially we did the right thing for the country and not necessarily the right thing for ourselves. We were punished for it. What appears to be the case – whilst in some ways it is a long way back – I was prepared as leader starting 15 months ago, for this to be a very long road back if that’s what it takes us, but I’m equally prepared for it to be a very quick road back because I think it probably needs to be for everybody else’s good.”

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“So, if you look at what’s happening, the Witney by-election, but [what] actually [is] more revealing are these council by-elections every week, which is quite a stunning thing to have made 21 gains to everybody else’s zero or worse – that tells you something about the appetite for us, and our real challenge is oxygen, publicity and relevance. But I think the times are providing us with relevance, so I would expect and hope that Cambridge would be one of those places that will elect a Liberal Democrat next time round.”

It’s at this point that I realise even Tim Farron isn’t immune to the political world, and has the ability to deviate, digress and evade that seems endemic to Westminster. Unfazed, I press on; next up is the obligatory question on the Liberal Democrats pitch to student voters given the coalition tuition fees debacle and subsequent mockery of Nick Clegg.

“To be honest with you, fees was never really about fees. It was about trust. And actually, for all that the system that was brought in wasn’t brilliant, actually if you look at its nuts and bolts, it’s probably slightly better than the one it replaced, in terms of it being fairer and redistributive. So, that’s not to defend the system, it’s just to put it into context. The lasting legacy, potentially, is that people are going to be bit wary of us.”

On reclaiming and rebuilding trust, Tim is quick to remind me that he voted against the rise in tuition fees: “I believe you should keep your promises. End of story. Trust takes years to build and seconds to lose. If you go into an environment and say ‘Oh, I must regain trust’ – that’s a bit contrived and vacuous for one thing. The ways in which we have already rebuilt trust is by taking very principled, bold and clear stands on two issues in particular.”

“One is clearly Brexit and the other is the refugee crisis. Two areas where we get shouted down by a lot of the media, and where we are doing something, certainly over the refugee crisis, that may be terribly unpopular, but terribly right.”

Sadly my five minutes is up, and my questions about Tim’s commitment to support gay marriage remain unasked. Tim Farron is a refreshing bastion of optimism: watch out for the Richmond Park by-election. Politics is constantly changing and reshaping fortunes, and the Liberal Democrats want to come in from the cold, and soon