Britain must agree to accept its share of thousands of migrants who have already reached Europe, Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said today as he condemned the government's 'pitiful and embarrassing' response to the crisis.

Delivering his first speech as leader to the party's conference in Bournemouth, Mr Farron accused David Cameron of cynical 'media management' to extract 'maximum headlines' from the image of a three-year-old Syrian boy who drowned on a Turkish beach.

He said the time has come for the UK to join an EU quota scheme, which under current plans would mean offering a home to 17,000 of the 160,000 people due to be resettled across the continent.

Delivering his first speech as Lib Dem leader to the party's conference in Bournemouth, Tim Farron accused David Cameron of cynical 'media management' while people face dying in refugee camps this winter

Mr Farron accused David Cameron of cynical 'media management' to gain 'maximum headlines' from the image of three-year-old Syrian boy, Aylan Kurdi, who drowned on a Turkish beach

Brussels has drawn up an emergency plan relocate refugees currently in Italy, Greece and Hungary across the EU. However, Britain has an opt-out which means it is not obliged to accept a single extra migrant.

Mr Cameron has promised to take 4,000 refugees every year until 2020, but only taking those direct from camps in Syria and Lebanon, not those who have reached Europe.

The EU-wide plan has exposed deep divisions with four countries - the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary - voting against it.

It will see Germany granting asylum to 35,000 refugees, France accepting 26,000 and Spain 16,000.

Mr Farron, who visited Calais this summer to meet migrants trying to reach Britain, said the UK government should sign up to the plan.

'Winter is coming and the risks and hardships faced by those seeking sanctuary will only increase,' he told delegates.

If we don't act now, many more will die Lib Dem leader Tim Farron

'If you are shocked by the pictures on our TV screens today, just think how much worse they will look when the snows come to the Balkans. If we don't act now, many more will die.

'So I am calling on our Government to opt in now to the EU plan to take our share of the refugees to be relocated throughout the continent.

'And I call on them to work with our neighbours to establish safe and sustainable reception centres, not only to process claims but to provide the shelter and security which the refugees so desperately need.

'And I call on the Government to provide the necessary financial support that our local authorities will need to help settle refugees, so as not to set community against community.

'This is an international solution to an international crisis.'

Mr Farron embraced the previous Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg in the audience after praising his leadership

Mr Farron was given a rapturous welcome by delegates in Bournemouth as he urged them to prepare to enter another coalition in 2020

Mr Farron pictured arriving at the Bournemouth International Centre to deliver his pitch to the public - and Lib Dem activists still reeling from the disastrous general election

X FACTOR IS A TERRIBLE SHOW, SAYS WANNABE POPSTAR FARRON Tim Farron said the X Factor is a 'terrible' programme, but he watches every Saturday If he had not been a politician, Tim Farron would like to have been a musician. Using his speech to introduce himself to the nation, he joked his old school friends were urging him to get their band back together. Despite boasting that he had written 'sure-fire electropop masterpieces' as a student, he admitted that his band were 'rubbish'. But he still did what many musicians trying to earn credibility do: criticise The X Factor. He said there were photos of his time in a band, but because they pre-digital 'they are so low resolution that you can't make out the eye-liner'. Mr Farron added: 'I've got a worse confession…On a Saturday night, I watch X factor…with the kids. It's a terrible programme, but strangely compelling. 'It is a desperately guilty pleasure - I have to cleanse myself by listening to Radio 6 for 2 solid hours afterwards. 'Anyhow, my mates from the band are still my mates. 'Our keyboard player rang me up a couple of weeks ago – he said, 'Tim – we should re-form, enter X factor next year'. 'I said, one: we're 45, two: I'm a bit busy, 3: we're still rubbish.' Advertisement

Mr Farron said that during his visit to Calais he met a 14 year-old boy who had broken both of his legs trying to board a lorry who was in a wheelchair pushed by a boy who was 11.

In a striking attack on the Prime Minister, Mr Farron said that the government was 'ignoring their humanity, it was just stuck in media management mode, following not leading'.

He said the government is 'still following the story' but it has changed stance after the harrowing image of three-year-old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi, who died with his brother and mother trying to reach the Greek island of Kos, has sparked an international outcry.

Mr Farron said: 'It's the body of a three year old boy face-down in the surf. And what we've had from David Cameron is a careful calibration of what it will take to manage that story, the minimum effort for the maximum headlines.

'And a policy which will not directly help a single one of the hundreds of thousands currently on the move across Europe.

'It's pitiful and embarrassing and makes me so angry.'

To a standing ovation from activists, he launched a passionate attack on the Prime Minister. 'I am proud to be British and I am proud of Britain's values.

'So when Mr Cameron turns his back on the needy and turns his back on our neighbours, I want the world to know, he does not speak for me, he does not speak for us, he does not speak for Britain.'

Mr Farron seized on the issue as he made his pitch to the public - and Lib Dem activists still reeling from the disastrous general election - that his party should return to government in 2020.

In his speech in Bournemouth he said his party should be 'serious about power' and claimed the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader had left the Lib Dems as the only credible opposition to the Tories.

'Against all the odds, we have just been given the chance to take centre stage,' he said.

The Lib Dems were reduced to a rump of just eight MPs as voters turned their back on the party after five years in power with the Tories.

But Mr Farron told activists they should be prepared to return to office rather than retreat to the comfort zone of opposition.

'If others wish to abandon serious politics, serious economics, that's their lookout,' he said.

'But you can be certain that the Liberal Democrats will occupy every inch of that progressive liberal space because you cannot change people's lives from the glory of self-indulgent opposition.'

Mr Farron said David Cameron's response to the migrant crisis had been 'pitiful and embarrassing' and accused the Prime Minister of turning his back on the needy

Mr Cameron, who discussed the refugee crisis with French President Francois Hollande at Chequers last night, will today hold talks with other EU leaders in Brussels

A STANDING OVATION BUT THERE WAS NO SIGN OF MRS FARRON Tim and Rosemary Farron posed for the cameras briefly on Saturday Tim Farron's speech was greeted with a long standing ovation from thousands of Lib Dem members. But there was no sign of Mrs Farron. In a break with tradition, the Lib Dem leader's wife, Rosemary, did not join him on stage and was not even in the hall. David Cameron often appears on stage with wife Samantha and Nick Clegg used to be greeted by Miriam after delivering set piece speeches. But Mrs Farron was nowhere to be seen. The couple married in 2000 and have two sons and two daughters. They posed for the cameras briefly on Saturday before the conference got underway but Mrs Farron is understood to have returned to the family home in Cumbria. Advertisement

In a personal section of the speech, the Lib Dem leader explained how he first became interested in politics after growing up 'on or below the breadline' in a terraced house in Preston 'in the shadow of the gasworks'.

'Very young parents, then divorced parents, lovely people, both worked hard, neither of them with much money. We lived with my Mum.

'She was out of work at times, so were most of my mates' parents. Looking back, I guess we might have been on or below the breadline from time to time.

'But that's the mark of great parents. We didn't realise we had it hard until much much later. Thinking back, I owe both my Mum and my Dad a vast debt.

'So I don't want you to feel any pity for me. I certainly didn't feel poor or disadvantaged – I had a great childhood.

'Mostly I saw how hard my parents had to work. My Dad was full-time in the building trade, and he made ends meet by DJing on Friday and Saturday night. I have inherited all of his passion for music… and none of his talent.

'But I learnt that for most people, success only comes from taking responsibility and making your own luck.'

He described how he felt 'common' on the day he first arrived in the House of Commons after becoming an MP in 2005.

'I have never met so many well-spoken, expensively educated people. It doesn't make them bad people. But it does make me feel like an outsider.

'But that's fine, because Liberal Democrats are outsiders.'

Mr Farron said he was inspired by watching the film Cathy Come Home, about a 'young woman whose life gets gradually and brutally torn apart' due to a lack of stable housing, when he was 14.

'Cathy Come Home lit a spark in me - it made me angry, it energised me, it made me want to get up and get involved,' he said. 'And so I did, and I haven't stopped.'

Go back to your constituencies and prepare for power... again

Mr Farron stressed the importance of winning power and putting principle into practice

He once gave the Lib Dems performance in government just two out of 10, but today Tim Farron said the party should prepare for power again.

The 45-year-old, who was widely seen as the left-wing candidate to replace Nick Clegg after the party's election bloodbath, sought to reclaim credit for the Lib Dems' five years in power.

And he told activists the party must stick to austere policies aimed at eliminating the structural deficit by 2017-18 - a position which demands spending cuts or tax rises.

He stressed the importance of winning power and putting principle into practice in his first major address to the Liberal Democrat conference as party leader.

Mr Farron insisted: 'I am proud of what we did in government and I am determined we will return to government.

'We will learn from the last five years but we will not repudiate the last five years. Five years where we learnt that power is tough but worth it.'

He added: 'I came into politics to change things, to make a difference, to make people's lives better. And to do that, you need the power to bring about change.

'There is nothing grubby or unprincipled about wanting to win. Nothing noble about defeat - losing sucks, losing robs you of your chance to make people's lives better.

'What's the point in being right if you never get to put your policies into action?'

The party has not changed its position on allowing electoral arithmetic to determine which parties are best placed to build a coalition.

It is recognised a Tory-Lib Dem coalition is likely to be closer to a Commons majority than a Labour-Lib Dem arrangement in 2020 given how far behind Labour currently are.

Senior party sources accepted that on the economy, the Liberal Democrats are closer to the Tories than Mr Corbyn's Labour.

Former leader Nick Clegg joined the standing ovation after Mr Farron's speech, with Lib Dem president Sal Brinton (centre) looking on

Mr Farron said: 'It's tough and I tell you frankly that it means that we won't be able to do all the things we might like to do in the short term.

'But not ending the deficit now means leaving the next generation to clear up our mess, and that's simply unfair.

'But what is equally unfair is to place the burden of ending that deficit wholly on the poorest and lowest paid - we must all play our part, based on our ability to pay.'

Turning to the Chancellor, Mr Farron is set to add: 'That, George, is what 'being all in it together' really means.'