Tim Farron has insisted that the Liberal Democrats are hungry for power again and said the party could make a rapid comeback after the general election "annihilation".

The Lib Dem leader said a series of mistakes under predecessor Nick Clegg contributed to a "devastating" result in May which left the party with just eight MPs.

But he predicted the party could make a "dramatic" return by taking advantage of Labour's shift to the left under Jeremy Corbyn - although he would not rule out forming a government with the opposition leader.

In a series of broadcast interviews ahead of his keynote speech at the party's conference on Wednesday, he outlined a plan to create a housing investment bank and allow councils to borrow up to £7 billion extra to fund new homes.

Mr Farron also vowed to tear up parliamentary conventions by instructing his peers to frustrate David Cameron's plans to prevent the sell-off of housing association homes even though it was a Tory manifesto commitment.

Setting out the path back to government for the Lib Dems, he told 5 News: "Our reaction to our devastating defeat in May has been the opposite to Labour's. Ours has been to understand the loss that we went through and then to think, 'you can achieve nothing if you are not in power'."

Mr Clegg has admitted to "mistakes and miscalculations" in the run-up to the general election and Mr Farron said voters were not clear what the party stood for.

Mr Farron told ITV News: "We have just had an election where we made some errors, there is no two ways about it. But maybe our biggest error was that people didn't have a sense of who we were.

"They had a good idea of what we were against, but my job now and the strategy I have to grow the Liberal Democrats into this vast space for a socially just, economically credible party in opposition to the Tories - my job is to make it clear what the Liberals are for, what Liberal Democrats are for."

He added: "I'm fed up of being against stuff, I want them to know what we are for."

Mr Farron - who said "a day in power is worth a thousand years in opposition" - listed his priorities as housing, mental health, taking the lead on the refugee crisis and protecting the UK's membership of the EU.

"The most patriotic thing you can do in the next 12 months is to vote for us to remain in the EU," he said.

With the party in the Commons reduced to a rump of just eight, Mr Farron said he would use the House of Lords to oppose Tory plans to extend the right-to-buy to housing associations, despite a convention that eventually manifesto promises should be allowed to pass through the unelected chamber.

He told Sky News: "The Salisbury convention is a gentleman's pact between the old, established parties. My view is our principal objective is to defend the rights of our communities up and down this country - rural communities like mine but also very urban communities in places like central London - who stand to lose their affordable homes, stand to lose their communities, stand to find that local families cannot stay anywhere near the places they were born and raised.

"I am on their side, not on the side of any political stitch-up."

Former leader Sir Menzies Campbell threw doubt on the suggestion by Mr Farron that the Liberal Democrats could be a viable party of power again by 2020.

He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "My view, being entirely realistic, is that this is a 10-year journey."

Sir Menzies, who is joining the House of Lords after quitting the Commons ahead of the general election, added: "I think if we go around telling people that we're going to hold the balance of power or that we're going to do well enough to be in government then people will be somewhat cynical or sceptical about that."

He said the party could improve its numbers in the House of Commons and have a significant influence in the next parliament.