Tim Farron left red-faced after phone blasts out NWA’s F*** Tha Police track during NHS meeting
Liberal Democrat leader told delegates at his party conference that although he admired the rap group he had a different attitude to law and order
RAPPERS NWA got Lib Dem leader Tim Farron into hot water when one of the group's most notorious hits started blaring from his phone.
Mr Farron said he was in a meeting with the head of the local NHS trust at his office in Kendal, Cumbria, when "F*** Tha Police" suddenly began playing.
The red-faced Lib Dem leader said his children were to blame after setting the album Straight Outta Compton as his ring tone.
This came after he had light-heartedly reviewed the unlikely music choice for music website RAM Album Club.
Recounting the tale during his rally speech at the party's autumn conference in Brighton, he said: "(The album) is deservedly considered a classic, but it's a bit sweary."
To laughter from the audience, he added: "I downloaded the album to my phone but my kids had been mucking about with my phone one morning, and apparently linked my ring tone with my iTunes.
"And so later that day, there I was in my office in Kendal meeting with the chief executive of the local NHS trust, when my phone went off and we were all treated to a quick burst of 'eff the police'.
"Which was lovely.
“Almost a pity I wasn't due to meet the chief constable until later that afternoon."
Mr Farron added that while he admired the rappers behind NWA, their attitudes toward law and order differed from his own.
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Also at the conference he said he would not “slap down” a councillor who questioned why school careers officers cannot suggest prostitution as a line of work for pupils.
The row flared after the chairman of Cheltenham Lib Dems, Dennis Parsons, told a special session of the party conference that careers officers were not allowed to suggest prostitution as employment, then added: "Why shouldn't they?"
Mr Farron insisted it was a "wonderful thing" that the Lib Dems are a party where such views can be expressed.
Mr Parsons used a discussion on how to combat the stigma attached to sex work to compare prostitution with accountancy.
He said: "The fact that we are asking 'should we seek to prevent people entering sex work?' is part of the problem. You wouldn't ask the question 'should we prevent people becoming accountants?' You'd just take it for granted.
"There is a stronger case, probably, for that than there is for preventing sex work.
"We have had a chap suggest that one of the areas we need to be concerned about was families coercing people to go into the sex trade. Well, again, you wouldn't protest at families urging and coercing people into becoming accountants.
"And even in this room full of liberals we have got a huge cultural problem that we do see sex work as different, and we see it as something a little bit tacky, and not quite nice, and not the sort of thing that we would want our sons and daughters to get involved in.
"We talk about schools - how many schools are going to have careers officers say to people, 'have you thought about prostitution?'
"It's not going to happen. And that's a cultural thing. Why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't they?"
Delegates at the special session heard that decriminalising prostitution would raise £1billion a year for the Treasury in taxes.