Simon Hughes: 'I haven't been as successful as I would have liked'

The Monday Interview: Liberal Democrat leadership candidate

Simon Hughes is not a regular nine-to-five type. During 24 years as an MP, he has been available at all hours, rushing about his south London constituency in his trademark yellow taxi, rushing over to the Commons for a meeting, probably arriving late, and rushing back across the Thames for another meeting, probably late again. He is the sort of man of whom it has been said that he needs a woman in his life to get him organised.

But there is no woman. And that is a subject that has been marked "private". Until now.

Hughes, 54, has embarked on a second attempt to become leader of the Liberal Democrats. In 1999, he came a good second to Charles Kennedy. This time, even those who do not want to be led by Hughes admit he is in with a good chance. He expects the next general election to produce a hung Parliament, in which case he could be the person who decides if Gordon Brown or David Cameron will be prime minister. He will also be the first bachelor to lead a major political party since Sir Edward Heath (unless you count William Hague and Charles Kennedy, who both married while they were in office).

So as Hughes weighed up whether to enter the leadership contest he had to face the possibility that if he continued to keep his private life private, people might think he had something to hide. He won his Bermondsey seat in 1983, in a by-election that produced one of the biggest swings against Labour and was marred by homophobic abuse directed at the Labour candidate, Peter Tatchell. A rumour began during the campaign that Tatchell was not the only gay candidate. So, is Simon Hughes gay?"

"No, I'm not," he replied, to a direct question. "But it absolutely should not matter if I was. If I was, and if people were to judge me on that, I would ask them to think again. There is no reason why you shouldn't have a gay leader of a party, or even a gay prime minister. I don't think this is an issue."

Not that he wants his life to be an open book. "I take the same view as David Cameron and other sensible people that there is a line to be drawn. I know my colleagues agree. They respect the fact that we should have some privacy."

Asked whether he had thought about getting married, he replied: "Often." But he added: "I haven't been as a successful as I would have liked, as those involved could tell you - only you won't get their names from me.

"I suppose it becomes a little more difficult as you grow older because you become more ingrained in your ways, and politics isn't the best profession for it because of the demands on your time, but I'm hopeful. It would be nice. Perhaps after I've been leader."

Anyway - politics. Of the four candidates for the partyleadership, Hughes represents the left. If others were to try to reinvent the Liberal Democrats as a greener, more libertarian version of the Conservative Party, as committed to low tax and the free market as the Tories, Hughes will be the main block.

He does not rule out the possibility that the Liberal Democrats might prolong the life of a Gordon Brown government should Labour lose its majority at the next election, especially if Brown made a better offer than David Cameron on electoral reform. But he is against entering a coalition government with the Tories.

Under his leadership, it is suggested, the Liberal Democrats might give Labour problems in the inner cities, but he would lose votes in the rural areas to a revitalised Tory party. Hughes - I suggest - is the candidate most likely to appeal to the bicycle-riding, muesli-eating, bobble-hat-wearing, well-intentioned and somewhat cranky liberal activist.

He does not agree. "It's not fair and it's not right. And if people look at what I have said and done over the years, they will see that I was pushing issues, for instance on the environment, before they entered the mainstream of political debate. I was out there physically campaigning against the Winchester bypass. Very few other MPs were there."

Although he represents an inner London seat, his roots are in the villages where he grew up, and in the Church. He was raised in a "simple Christian household". Unusually for a Liberal Democrat, he voted against a complete ban on hunting, just as he will vote against a complete ban on smoking in pubs.

"Yes, I come from the good sound Liberal tradition, the Lloyd George tradition, and I'm proud of it, but when I came to a decision to live and work in the inner city, it was primarily to take on the corporatist attitudes of the Labour left," he said. "As a liberal, I'm against excessive regulation. I've argued strongly for handing power away from the centre and giving local communities more freedom to run their schools, to hold police more accountable to their communities, to put the health service under more local control.

"Tax is something you have to have in order to raise the money to do what you want to do. You have to raise what you need, but you shouldn't have the luxury of raising more than is necessary.

"My parents did not have any money. My father got up at four or five in the morning and went to work, and I was taught that you had to earn your way and pay your way, and that debt was not acceptable. In my constituency every week I meet other families who are struggling. We have to have policies that don't put burdens on people in any walk of life that they can't bear."

Hughes, it has also been said, is too individualistic and too chaotic to be a team player, let alone a team leader - which helps explain the relatively small number of MPs backing his campaign. The diaries of the former leader, Paddy Ashdown, include anaccount of a meeting called at a time which suited Hughes, which could not start until he turned up, 55 minutes late.

"I don't remember that particular event, but that is not to say it isn't true. I'm sure it is, if Paddy put it in his diary. But in Southwark, where we have a Liberal Democrat council I work with very closely, I don't think there is a single example where we haven't worked as team or of me breaking ranks.

"There is some historic justification to the complaint about bad time-keeping, but in the last leadership election I don't think I was late for anything, and I know that in this campaign the same will apply. If I am elected, the leader's office staff will not be appointed by the leader alone, but by the leader in consultation with the party, so that we have people in whom everyone has trust.

"If you know you have a weakness and it's been a problem, you deal with it. And I've had many private assurances from colleagues, who may not have nominated me publicly, that they will be happy to work with me if I'm elected - and that's how it should be, because we're all friends together."

All friends together, eh? As Charles Kennedy extracts the knives from his back, he might demur from that remark, but Hughes is an optimist. This is a man who believes in romance and marriage, though it has not come to him yet, and who believes that bad habits such as sloppy time-keeping can be overcome. I would have asked another question, but at the exact moment the interview was scheduled to end, his agent arrived, tapping his watch. The new-look, disciplined Simon Hughes put his coat on to go to his next engagement.

The CV

* BORN 17 May 1951

* EDUCATION 1970 - 1973 Selwyn College, Cambridge, 1974 Called to the Bar, Inner Temple, 1975 College of Europe, Bruges

* CAREER

1971 Joins Liberal Party

1983 - 2005 MP for Southwark and Bermondsey

1983 - 2003 Responsibilities: environment (1983-88); education, science and training (1988-90); environment, natural resources and food (1990-94); urban affairs and community relations (1994-95); health (1995-99); home affairs (1999-03)

2004 President of the Liberal Democrats

2005 Liberal Democrat shadow attorney general