The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 34. Ed Davey: Leading the Lib Dems, fighting the Tories, and a coalition with Starmer’s Labour?

Episode Date: September 3, 2023

What was it like for the Liberal Democrats in coalition? Would Ed Davey be prepared to work alongside Keir Starmer in another coalition government? Is tactical voting a good idea? Join Rory and Alastair as they speak with leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, to discuss all these questions and more. TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [e-mail] Producers: Dom Johnson + Nicole Maslen Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. Sign up to The Restis Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolities.com. That's the restispolities. Welcome to the Restis Politics leading with me, Alec. And me, Rory Stewart.

And our guest today is I'm going to call you Ed Davy, not Sir Ed Dave. I don't like all these honours. You can call me Edith. I'll call you, Ed, great, actually. So Ed Davey, who I'm sure all of you know is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. And I suspect this interview may be a tale of two coalitions, the one that Ed Davy was part of under David Cameron, Nick Clegg, and the one that he might be part of, who knows, after the next general election, when Kierstahman might or might not be Prime Minister. elected in 1997 and elected by 56 votes, three recounts, so pretty tense stuff, stayed there till 2015 when the electors of Servet and decided they'd had enough of him in the coalition government

of which he'd served in the cabinet, kicked him out, but he hung around and came back two years later and then three years after that was leader of the Liberal Democrats. Does that sort of sum it all up reasonably well? It's a brief, yeah, I guess so. Yeah, we've got to be brief. But we're going to cover your whole life and times. And I think Rory tends to be the Freudian amongst us. He always likes to start with childhood.

Oh, good. Oh, good. So, Rory, dig into the childhood. Alice is more on the kind of Jungian side in this kind of relationship. So, Ed, thank you really very, very much coming on. I mean, we'd love to start with a sense of your childhood and growing up and what formed you. And particularly, I think, very difficult, very difficult. very challenging for in some ways quite tragic family history.

Could you just tell us a little bit about your early life? Yeah, I was born in Mansfield Woodhouse to John and Nina Davy. I was the youngest of three boys. And my dad, he'd come from a sort of mining community in North Nottingshire, met my mum when he was doing his national service, and he was doing pretty well. but age 38 he was diagnosed with cancer and so this was 70, 71, I was four

and he died within three months so my mum was widowed age 36 with three boys under 10 so it was extremely challenging for her I didn't really know my dad Do you have any memories of him at all? Yeah one memory when I was picked up from play school he was in the back of the car with a large overcoat

because it was winter and he was obviously being treated and that was affecting him so that's about the only real memory I have of him. I found a

I'd been elected for a while and I was going through some photographs of my lovely Nana one day 20 years ago and I found a press cutting of him and it was my dad

speaking to the Sutton in Ashfield Liberal Association in the 50s saying that only the Liberals understood the NHS and And it was a real moment because I'd have thought he was a Tory.

Because he'd have said he used to play Snoke at the local Tory club. But he clearly wasn't. Oh, okay. You can imagine how that meant to me. Yeah, absolutely. Even if he was wrong, it's actually late. He was there. And then, so he died, and then your mother died as well when you were in the teens.

So obviously I was close to mum. Mum was bringing three of us up. And then she got breast cancer, had a mastectomy. And then when I was 12, she was diagnosed with secondary cancer on her bones. And that's not unusual for women who have breast cancer. But it's a very painful cancer. And so my middle brother and I, because my oldest brother had also gone to university and so on, Henry and I nursed her for three years at home. And, yeah, it was quite tragic.

It's a very, very painful disease. I have to administer morphine. We had a bell jar of morphine. Can you believe that in our kitchen? I used to have to help her put these pads on on her body so she could give herself electric shocks to dull the pain. So it was quite, it was full on, full on care. While I was going to school?

Whilst going to school, yeah. And this was you and your early teens, sort of 13, 14, 15. Yeah, it started the sort of full-on care when she was clearly terminally ill, starting when I was about 12, and then she died when I was 15. In fact, I was by her bedside, she was in the last two weeks she was in Nottingham General Hospital. They put her on a dementia ward, which was not great. She wasn't in a hospice. And I was there with my school uniform age 15 by her bedside, and she died while I was there on my way to school. So, yeah, that was obviously quite a

quite a moment. What's this meant for the way that you think about life, about death, about families? I mean, how has it made you different, do you think, from other people? Well, I think there's quite few other people who go through difficulties, let's be clear. I mean, I was a young carer, so I have quite a lot of affinity for young carers, and it's an area that I've worked with cross-party. I do quite a bit of work on childhood bereavement, campaigned on on bereavement allowances, widows allowances and so on. I think for me personally, when you lose both your parents, you sometimes, you can go, you can go one of the ways, going on you.

For me, I remember, we lived in a little bungalow just on the Artska Son Nottingham. And I'd go back there, first with my brother, was at his year off, then I'd go and live my grandparents in North Nottingshire, then my eldest brother came to study at Trent Polly, as it what then once, Trent Polly Technic back in the day, and I lived with him for a bit. But I would go there because we kept the bungal on for a long time, often be by myself. I organised the best parties at school, as you can imagine. But one day I remember being in the kitchen, it was before my own levels. And I was thinking, why am I going to do all this hard work?

Because previously I'd worked for my mother, because I think kids do, don't they? Young people do. They work to make their parents proud. And this work for me was a real Rubicon moment where I just thought, right, I'm either going to do it for myself or I'm not going to do it. And I had to sort of take the decision. And I could have taken different pathways, but I decided to knuckle down. Do you feel that you grew up faster than other children do because of those experiences?

Inevitably. I think when you look at young carers and people who lose parents, there's a number of things that often come out from the research. There's empathy. There's a degree of time management because you're juggling lots of different things. I think resilience, you have to be pretty resilient, obviously. And, yeah, that plays into how you approach life and your relationships, your work. And you obviously have quite moderately bright. You went to Oxford University and got a first in PPE.

Flute to it, obviously. Can we, yeah, come in on that because the next stage in your life becomes a very sort of conventional, almost success story. You go off to Oxford, as Alastair says, get a first. You become president of your junior common room. You become a researcher to the Lib Dems, and you find yourself elected into the House of Commons very young. You're part of basically the same generation as David Cameron, Ed Balls, Ed Miliband, but you enter Parliament before them, don't you? You come in very young, so that by the time the coalition comes along in 2010, you've been there for 13 years. I mean, you're already quite long in the tooth for somebody who's by that stage, only in his 40s.

mid-40s. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a bit before Oxford that's quite important in my own story and certainly my political story, because obviously my parents weren't around to influence me. I sort of thought they were sort of what we might call Heathite Tories, is my impression, but obviously it wasn't a big thing. My first political meeting was a Tory disco, young conservative disco, age 12, my eldest brother, who was the chairman of Nottingham Conservative, he dragged me along to this. And it was dreadful. Put me off them for life, I tell you. But the really influence on me, to be serious from it, was my cousin, a wonderful man called Peter Lawton, who sadly left us, who was very much into the environment, into conservation. He worked particularly in developing countries on family planning, the rights of women, female education and healthcare, primary healthcare, in many, many of the poorest countries in the world.

and his commitment to global justice to the environment was something that really influenced me and then I had a year off between school and university where I travel a lot hitchhight and thund around a bit and I read quite a lot and I read a book called Seeing Green by Jonathan Porrard. It had one page on climate change and the rest on lots of other aspects of environmental politics and I went up to Oxford. This is slightly non-conventional Rory. I went around Freshest Fair and the only thing I joined was the student ecology group

and my first bit of political spin Alistair was to change its name to green action Not bad Not bad How's that right? A lot better So that was How I sort of got in

And I went to different places At Oxford's traditional I didn't like the Oxford Union Didn't join the Oxford Union I went to Oxford Labor Club Didn't join that Didn't join any political organisation actually at Oxford

If you had just said to the Ed Davy, aged 18, 19, going to university, you will be a politician. Would you thought that was possible? Possible, but not likely. So two of my finals papers on development economics and development politics. I really wanted to work abroad, actually. And I applied to get an MSC in agricultural economics to see if I could be of use to people, as opposed to just sit in a chair. And the then Ministry of Agriculture, Fishery and Foods, in their wisdom, didn't give me a grant.

So I went around my girlfriend at the time, had a good summer, got the odd job here, when I looked after my grandmother, my nana, because she'd broken her hip in an accent. So I looked after her for a bit. And then applied for various jobs. And I applied to the social and liberal Democrats to be their parliamentary economics researcher. I wasn't a member of the party. Who was leader that? Paddy Ashdown. He was leader when you became an MP, wasn't he?

Yeah, yeah. He was the ultimate reason why you win the party. Right. Ed, I mean, so I think there's something really interesting and intriguing for people here about the tension between your extraordinary early life. I mean, the sadness of it, the heroism that you were showing as a young teenager, and then you entering what seems to many listeners to be the much more conventional world of being a sort of special advisor, I know it's specialised, but anyway, an advisor to a party

and then becoming an MP very young. So there's a sort of tension between that real life experience your teens, but you never actually went out to, you know, do your agricultural economics and in the depths of wherever. And you've spent a lot of your life, I guess, within Westminster. So one question is how do you work to keep yourself in touch with the world outside politics? given that you've been in politics for so much of your working life? Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I'm almost an accidental MP because I could have ended up in development. I could have ended up in the Green Movement more broadly.

I applied for a job at Friends of the Earth, for example. Lots of things I might have ended up doing. Even when I took the job with the Lib Dems in Parliament, I wasn't a party member. And then I didn't expect to stand as an MP. I didn't expect to get elected. So it's all been a little bit accidental. And I think that's men that I've always sort of been free in touch with my family and my community.

I mean, I like to think, well, my feet are quite firm on the ground when I get back home. You know, I have a disabled son who's now 15 is wonderful, but he can't walk or talk. And he needs 24-7 care, and I think regressibly always will. My wife's quite a mess. So while she's amazing and a fantastic support and a huge amount, that's still challenging. So at home, I'm pretty grounded because I'm a carer and have to think about my family the whole time. And, you know, if you're a Lib Dem, and I don't mean this in any disparaging way to Labour or Conservative colleagues, not at all. But you tend to get re-elected by being really hardworking in your community in a way which, if you're a Labour MP, a Conservative MP, you have quite a bit of a push, you know, from the National Party.

You get much less of that in the Liberal Democrats. and so you really have to earn your spurs. And that means being engaged, doing lots of advice surgeries, knocking on doors, being as involving a community as you possibly can. And to be honest, I really like that. I enjoy that sort of what we often call community politics. I like that, I like that a bit, and that keeps you grounded. We do want to come back to talk about your son

and how you deal with that as a politician, as well as a father, as it were. But I just want to go back to 1997. It was obviously a wonderful year for British politics. nothing to do with your election. I just want to look because I knew Paddy Ashdown very well and you said that he was in a way

the real reason that you really got into politics. First of all, your impressions of that government through that period when you were sitting as a Lib Dem MP, but also whether you were aware of the discussions that were going on between Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown about what I think Tony would like to have seen as the beginning of a proper realignment.

Were you aware of that? What's your views on that? And I guess I'm asking what you feel about the Labour parties a day and how you see possible relations between you and Labour in the future. Well, let's stick, first of all with what happened in the Robs, 97 and then 97 government. I think all active Lib Dems were aware that there was conversations. Part of that was because we were all wanting to remove this Conservative government. We've been in power for a long, long time.

There were lots of things going on, particularly in constitutional reform, the Scottish Convention, Social Justice Commission, a whole range of things where there was very clear an overlap between Lib Dem policy and Labour Party policy. And there was a movement where there was a lot of encouragement of tactical voting. And what we didn't mention about my university career was part of that campaign. I was involved in tactical voting 87. So being involved in encouraging anti-concertive voting for a long time. Rory. And so we were aware of that. But of course, you know, as soon as the election happened and Labor got this huge majority, many has felt, well, we hope Labor will keep on with its progressive agenda. And in many respects, it did, particularly in that first parliament.

And I probably voted with Labor Party, Labour government then more than the Exertial Party, because we were agreeing with lots of the policies you were doing. They were in our manifesto, you know. It changed over time. but inevitably, I guess. But, and this is really quite important, where there was a distinction between people like myself and even Paddy, who is my political hero, let's be clear, we were suspicious of a Labour government

that had a huge majority, which wasn't delivering on things like electoral reform. You had the Jenkins Commission that wasn't delivered on. And so the key part of that reform agenda, which never happened. and as we began to sense a bit more illiberalism coming in, particularly from the Home Office, the distances grew. But at the start of it, there was a lot of meeting of minds. So tell us a bit about the distances growing.

And I've read some of the stuff that she said in the past, but it'd be nice to get a kind of crisp, clear analysis about what, from your point of view, was less good about the second half of that Labour government compared to what you liked in the first half. First of all, the first half, I thought, its biggest problem was it was very cautious. I mean, perhaps understandably so given the history, but we found that we were arguing for more tax and spend. So for a period, we were to the left of Labor economically because we felt our public services where Labor had actually historically now had a good record looking back over the 13 years. For sure. But in the, I'm not, I'm not complaining about that. But in the first four years, I think you will also agree that there wasn't so much. Yeah, we had got elected on the promise not to mess around too much with tax.

Yeah, and we were saying that you need to do something. So we were already doing. You had what we call the longest P in history, which is everything was going to go, there's extra pencil. Well, of course, of course, you would say that I wouldn't, and I would say it was a very good policy to make sure that education was properly funded. and we spelt it out. I remember, as our education spoke to the time,

spelling out to Jack Straw, exactly what we would spend the money on to improve people's life chances. And I was very much involved in that. Can I just interrupt and explain this joke to listeners who aren't in the middle of this joke? So the Livetems had promised an extra penny on income tax, which was going to go to education,

and hence Alistair's joke about the longest Pian history because he thought it was going lots of directions. Yeah, because it tended to get promised for all sorts of things. as interviews, well, interviews, press, as MPs.

As someone who is the party economics advised for a long time who helped develop the policy and who cost the manifesto,

I can assure you that we as a group of liberal Democrats were very clear what we were spending the money on. And so there was that sort of

criticism of Labor to go back to your question, Rory. And then there was this degree of slight authoritarianism coming in

from the home office, whether it was over civil liberties or over immigration, and asylum in particular. Give us examples, because people don't remember this very well. Well, I think I don't exactly when it happened, but removing the right of assignment seekers

to work, we thought was a really bad idea. We still think it's a bad idea. Simon seekers still can't work. And we think that's bad for them, their health, their dignity, and bad for the taxpayer. And so we objected to that. That's a good example. We had Miriam Gonzalez Durant's, Nick's, my phone recently. and I've talked to Miriam Lotz and I feel I agree with her about lots of things and I've had this argument about what is a liberal?

What does a liberal think and do that I don't think and do? Okay, well, I'll tell you what my leader is. I can really put it in a nutshell. I think liberals are about empowering people. I believe that. And holding the already powerful to account. I believe that. So it's about power and how you give power to ordinary people and how you make sure the powerful,

have to be accountable how they use that. I believe that. Good. Well, come and join us. No, because what I think means you, looking through some of the stuff, you know, just on the last couple of days reading some stuff that you said in the past, my sense of your liberalism is that you really don't

like the Nanny State. I was very shocked, for example, to read that you were opposed to some of the measures when we were tackling smoking, pubs and clubs. Good example. Let me, let me, but it was only one tiny bit of it. So I voted for all your legislation, the Labour Party's legislation, to ban smoking in pubs and clubs.

But one little bit, there was one amendment, and most Liberal Democrats voted with the government, but was myself and a few of those who voted against. Eight, there were eight of you. Eight rebels. Thank you. And we voted because the concept was, if you were a smoker in a smoker's club, where in that club the employees didn't have to come in to serve you drinks or take away, and you could just be smokers smoking together,

that you should have the right to do that. So is that liberalism? Well, it's about freedom, and it's the state, whether you draw the line between the state telling people what they can do and allowing people to have some freedom. And so the argument on smoking was

secondary smoking can harm you, but in the amendment that I vote for as liberal, that wouldn't have been the case. There would be no harm to any other people. and I go back to my John Stuart Mill. Just before we get on to John Stuart Mill in this amazing Oxford Finals paper, can I go back to this little disagreement

that you had with Alistair there? So he's saying, look, let's, I agree with you. I believe in empowering people. I believe in challenging power. I believe holding powerful people accountable. And your answer to that is, well, come and join us then. But obviously, Alistair's answered you was, no, wait a second, why don't you come and join us?

So what is it that stops you being a Labour MP? You're sounding for a labour at the moment. Why weren't you a Labour MP? Because actually for the sort of reason that Alistair was touching on then with the smoking, my impression of Labour over the years is ultimately they are more willing to trust the state far more than liberals are. And they do that on the economy, on personal freedom, on many other issues. And they say if the state is doing it, well, it must be right. Well, I, as a liberal, worry about that because that could take power away from people.

And often the state is the powerful organization that needs to be held to account. It's not just private companies, but it can be the state. And that's the big distinction between, I think, the liberal Democrats who really want to empower everybody. And sometimes that means pushing back against the state. You see, I guess my spirit, I've got a lot of friends in the Lib Dems. Charles Kennedy, as you know, was a very close friend of mine. I get the feeling sometimes that Lib Dems are basically you'll be you'll be whatever it takes to be when you're fighting that election in that place. So for example, give you an example, I was talking to somebody this morning about housing.

And they were saying that they have a real worry if there is a LibLab coalition after the next election. Because they think if the libs, if you guys get all the seats that you need to get to be maybe part of a reforming. Labour-led government, you can have to win a lot of these seats where at the moment your candidates are going around telling Tories, no, I don't agree with building any new homes either. I'm going to have to unpick a lot of what you've just said. I'm very happy to take the nimbiaism on because it's not true. But first of all, this concept that the Conservatives are consistent over time and everywhere is nonsense. I never said that. I never said that. I did not say that. The Labour Party consistent everywhere is a nonsense. You guys accused the Liberal Democrats are doing that, and actually I think you guys are more guilty. It's easier for the Lib Dems, isn't it? It's easier for the Lib Dems, isn't it? Because you know where you need to win. And where you need to win, the seats that you can win, most of them, you're going to be up against the Tories. That's right, isn't it? Well, it is true in this coming election, the vast majority of seats we can win and the seats we can hold our opponents to the Tories. There are one or two exceptions. There are one or two exceptions, a sheffled Hallam, where we're against a Labour, one and two of the seats where we might take on Labour.

depending on how the cards go, and there's a few against the SMP, but fundamentally you're right. And I've fought the Conservatives all my life, and, you know, back to Tactical Vote 87 before I was in the political party. And I want to remove the Conservatives from power. And to take on the nimbus, and I don't want that to go over that, we want to build more houses. The question is, what type of houses and where? The current system initially was very top-down, although the Conservatives had changed that a bit, but it's still very much a developer-led system. Liberal Democrats believe in a community-led system.

We actually change the law in government around neighbourhood plans. And interestingly, this government's analysis of neighbourhood plans where they've been allowed to operate have resulted in more houses being built, but more affordable houses being built that have more infrastructure and genuine communities. So we want more houses, we want the right type of houses.

Can I just sort of pull you up and really interesting? So I was a huge fan of the neighbourhood plan. And when you say you did it in government, you obviously mean you did it in coalition with the Conservatives when you were in the same government. It was led by Lib Dem ministers, but yeah. So I was very keen on it. Greg Clark was very keen on it. I led the first pilot in Cumbria with a neighbourhood plan.

We got it through. We did the first demonstration of this thing. So what I'm trying to understand is how does it work with Lib Dems claiming credit for stuff when they're in coalition and then rejecting other stuff in Co-inition? How do we know what you did? and what the Tories did. To be a moment of Rory, I tend to find that Conservatives claim credit for all the things that we initiated, same-sex marriage.

And everyone thought it was David Cameron's idea. It was actually Lynn Featherston was the real promoter of that. If you talk about renewables, you know, Ed Miliband did a lot of work. But, you know, in coalition, Chris Hune, myself and the Liberal Democrats generally. How do we know if this is true or not? I mean, what I remember is David Cameron fighting a really brutal battle on same-sex marriage, taking on his party, taking the campaign. taking huge amounts of political risk.

So how do we give the credit to Lynn Featherstone? Well, you can read her book, and you can see how the genesis of that policy coming to the cabinet and how we pushed it. And you're absolutely right. Of course, there were conservatives who worked with us. That had to be the case. It was a coalition. And on renewables, there were some amazing conservative supporters of what we did.

I mean, I particularly remember a guy called Charles Hendry, I'm sure you know, Amber Rudd and others. but there were also on the other side Rory, and I'm sure you remember this, George Osbourne, Eric Pickles, Owen Patterson, all who tried to stop me on almost a weekly basis doing the things I wanted to do.

And it became really obvious to me, particularly when doing offshore wind, and we were putting in the system which managed to massively reduce the cost of offshore wind and made Britain the world lead in offshore wind. When we were doing that, with some help from people like Oliver Letwin,

I'm very happy to give him some credit, But George Osborne didn't want that to happen. And I know this is a fact, Rory, because after the election, when the Tories got a majority, George Osborne took advice, according to some officials, who I won't name, but they worked for me, and then they had to face a Tory-only government. George Osborne tried to cancel the contracts I'd signed for lots of offshore wind. He took advice on could he cancel them? Now, we had made them, what are called, private law contracts.

It's a bit geeky. but it meant that if they had cancelled them, they would have had to pay to the developer, the whole value of the contract. So we stopped George Osborne, by the way we designed the policy, stopped him stopping the offshore win revolution. So I can prove the Tories tried to get in the way. I won't keep teasing you on this, but I guess listening to this, I fear some listeners may feel that this is one of the continual challenges for the Lib Dems, isn't it? The increasingly detailed attempts to try to explain exactly what you were responsible for in the coalition and what the other lot were responsible and what George Osborne or what other sort. I mean, is that a big political communications challenge for you that you find yourselves being blamed for the bad bits and not getting the credit for the good bits? To be honest, when I knock on doors around the country, when we campaign in by-elections or local elections, we pay off the general election, people are not talking about what happened 10 years ago.

I know this program, of course, we all think about it. But the electorate, they've moved on. You know, they've had to suffer Brexit. They've had to suffer, you know, the pandemic. They've had to suffer all these conservative prime ministers who are all completely and utterly hopeless. And they want to know what you're going to do for the issues that matter to them today and tomorrow.

And that's the cost of living is number one. How they're going to pay for their bills? It's things like the NHS and care. And so as leader of a political party, I think, understandably, focusing on what is the concerns of the electorate are. Almost no one says, you know, what happened in 2012. What they might do, what people might do is say, oh, I didn't really much enjoy that coalition experience.

I don't think that worked very well. Some might say they thought it worked well, but I think what people want to know is how could a party that supported people like George Osborne and propped up people like David Cameron and George Osborne, are we now going to trust those people to prop up a totally different sort of government? I mean, I want them to be a totally different sort of government, but deep down, you surely want the numbers to fall in a way that you go back into government. Well, first of all, I think you are running ahead of yourself.

Sure. Way ahead, if you don't want me saying so. We've got to campaign for that election and make our case as an independent, proud party with our liberal Democrat values and policies. You will focus particularly on those seats where you have to win? Of course, that's rational. What we all do, isn't it? But going back to the Conservative Coalition, let's remember, and I'm glad I'm able to put this on the record yet again, I fought the Conservatives all my life.

Being in coalition government, for me at least, and for a number of my colleagues, was extremely difficult. It was one of the most difficult things that I've done in my political career, because I disagreed with some of them a lot, not with people like Rory, actually, and there were a few that helped make it work. most of them have been expelled from the Conservative Party by Boris Johnson. But you went through the coalition, you've described it as an experience you didn't particularly enjoy, but the truth is for you to get power, the ability to make change for the people who vote for you again,

you're probably going to have to do it with a Labour-led government. Otherwise, I mean, if Labour gets another landslide, you're going to have less power, less ability to make change. So therefore, is there not a party of you that wants that to happen? Well, I think there's several things I'd say about that. First of all, from the opposition benches, you can make change and influence people. I've heard you in a number of areas talk about campaigning MPs, David Steele, the Abortion Act, most recently Vera Hobb House, you know, Liberal Democrat MPs making difference and making change, right? So let's be clear, it's not all about getting into government.

But the other thing I'd say about this whole future debate is having been around a long time, as you kindly remind me, I've seen a lot of Liberal Democrat leaders approach elections. Seven. You've seen seven. Indeed. That's quite a lot, actually. And the thing that I've noticed, the most successful ones don't spend all their time worrying about what happens after the election. Agreed. The most successful ones focus on their job in hand. Correct. In my case, being as many conservative MPs as possible, and talking to the voters, rebuilding that trust, setting out our store on the cost of living, on the NHS, on sewage or wherever it may be.

And I think political reform as well, to reform. Therefore, making sure that however the cookie crumbles after the next election, we have many more Liberal Democrat MPs to champion their community and to champion Liberal Democrat values. And that is what I'm going to be laser-beamed focused on. Can you tell us, I mean, what went wrong in 2015 and 2019? Because it seems to me that the basic theme of British politics is that it's in the centre. A lot of the votes are heaped in the centre. Many of the people who listen to our show are in the centre. So you would have thought you occupy the kind of natural space in British politics.

I was a fan of Nick Clegg. I thought you did a good job in the coalition. You went into the 2015 election. and you were completely destroyed as a party. Then 2019 comes along. You're handed this fantastic opportunity of running against two complete lunatics, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn.

It should be the ideal moment to make the case for the moderate liberal centre because these populist extremists are running the two main parties. And again, you fail to pull it off. What's going wrong? Well, I think every election is different. And so, if I may, I think 15 was different reasons

for 1915. We knew when we went to coalition was going to harm us politically. And we talked to our sister parties in Europe and liberal parties about their experience of coalition because many have been in government either as a senior party or junior party. And they said, look, if you're the junior party in coalition, you get the blame for everything that goes wrong and never get the credit. That's traditionally what happens in coalition. So we knew we were going to get a hit. But I think the biggest mistake we made was not to make it clear that we were pretty uncomfortable

with aspects of the coalition that we disagreed with the Conservatives so long. To do that, though, when you're part of the team. It is, because we were trying to make the coalition work, so you could cooperate. But the lesson that when you talk to some of our sister parties across Europe is that they said, you know, you needed to make it clear that you were having disagreements. I mean, I tried to get the Winden Street to take Eric Pickles to court, you know, a fellow cabinet member.

So I was in a total grievance. And I said after the 2015 election, because I was very loyal to Nick, because I think, you know, whatever we think about him, I think he was brave and courageous party leader. I said, look, if you're in the middle, you've got to be highly visible. If you're in the middle of the road, you're better put on a fluorescent yellow jacket. And we didn't. And I think we reduced to minimize the differences we had with the conservatives. And that meant people didn't see us as a distinctive independent party.

And that was a huge mistake in 2015. The states in 2019 were different. So you felt used. Do you feel that the Liberal Democrats got into power as part of the coalition and the Tories were playing you a lot of the time? That's how it felt to me. Well, I was trying to play the Tories. As I said, I fought them every day of the week of doing my jobs.

And I tried to outmaneuver them. And many times I did and many other colleagues did. I think the biggest problem, the criticism I've just made of ourselves, was we didn't show. tell people about those battles. And I think that, you know, if you are an independent, different party, which we very much are, you need to make sure that people understand that. So can I fast forward to 2019 again? So we've got Boris Johnson, populist, he's come in, he's paroched parliament, he's lied to the queen, he's doing all this, he's challenging the Supreme Court. You've got Jeremy Corbyn doing whatever bizarre stuff Jeremy Corbyn's doing.

Brexit is in full meltdown. There is a huge. huge groundswell of support for a moderate liberal centre ground in British politics to take on these two populistic streams. Why is that not your moment, 2019? Why is that not the moment where the Lib Dems come romping through to victory? I have mainly blamed first past post system because, and let me take you through the thinking, because it's the thing that we grapple with in the Liberal Democrats. And it's slightly different from you guys from bigger parties, right? But from our perspective, it really hurts us. And in the 2019 election, we found a lot of people who wanted to vote for us, particularly a lot of former conservatives who hated Boris Johnson, hated Brexit,

and really, really wanted to vote anything other than the conservatives. But they were scared, rigid about Jeremy Corbyn. And I think there were an awful lot of seats that we might have won in 2019, but for people's fear of Jeremy Corbyn. And, you know, I think that's just the reality. And in the first past the post, you know, people have to decide, you know, who's going to be the winner. And, you know, you didn't need many people to, you know, decide originally they were going to vote Lib Dem and can't afford it because of Jeremy Corby, the danger of him becoming prime minister, even though a Labour MP couldn't get elected in that constituency. And they switched back to the Tories. And that's been a real problem for us. We tend to do better when the

Labour leadership and the Labour Party is more electable. Why do we do better in the years of Tony Blair in the years of Gordon Brown? Well, because Labour was more credible then. When do we do badly when you have something like Michael Foote and Jeremy Corbyn? And arguably, though, I think they're very different from Michael Foote and Jeremy Corbyn, Neil Kinnock and Ed Miliband. And give me your assessment then of Rishi Sunak and Kiyah Stama? Well, I think Rishi Sunak is completely out of touch. He's a clear, bright guy. He's got more integrity than Boris Johnson, though that's quite a low bar.

But I think he's prisoner of the Conservatives. He looks really weak to me. And as I've made clearer on countless occasions, I want the Conservatives out of government. And, you know, my job is to beat as many of them as possible the next election. So, you know, Keir, I don't know very well. I don't know. Rish is very well. I observe him like you do.

probably don't weigh better than I do, he seems to have done a job with the Labour Party to move them away from the Corbinista fringe of British politics. And I think, you know, he deserves some credit for that. I still don't quite know what he stands for. Well, I don't know what a Labour government would do under Kirstama. And, you know, my job isn't really to worry about him. My job is to make sure that the Liberal Democrats perform as well as possible. So I spend my time thinking about our target seats. But you said a moment ago, that you do better when the Labour Party looks electable.

Do you put Keir in the Tony Blair Gordon Brown camp or the Jeremy Corby and Michael Foote? He looks more... By the way, can I say as a friend, RIP, of Michael Foote, I don't like saying Michael Foote Jeremy Corby in camp,

but you know what I mean. Yeah, well, I think Michael Foote was a huge intellect, right? But I don't know who said it was the 83 manifesto was the longest... Gerald Corpens. Right, okay, yeah. So that's really.

known history. Yeah, yeah. And that's what I'm really driving at. I mean, I don't think we know absolutely for sure, but he looks a bit more in the camp of more electable Labour leaders. That's what the polls suggest. And, I mean, he's clearly very different from Jeremy Corbyn. Okay, Ed, Rory, let's just take a quick break.

Back in a minute. Hey, this is Michael and Hannah from Gollhangers. The Rest is Science. This episode is brought to you by Cancer Research UK. We often think of beating cancer as treatment, But imagine stopping it before it begins. After years of work, cancer research UK scientists are launching a clinical trial of lung vax, the first vaccine designed to prevent lung cancer. It builds on Tracer X, the world's largest cancer evolution study, which tracked lung cancer cells over many years to uncover the disease's earliest warning signs. Lung Vax is designed to train the immune system to spot these signs early on, destroying 40 cells.

before cancer develops. So it's not treatment, but preventative, with the potential to stop lung cancer before it starts. The first stage of the trial starts this year, focusing on people at higher risk. It shows what long-term research makes possible. For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research breakthroughs and how you can support them,

visit cancerresearchuk.org forward slash the rest is science. Hi everybody, it's Dominic Samark here from The Rest is History. Now, some of you may have heard me on your show, The Rest is Politics, when Rory was away, and I was filling in and enjoying Alastair Campbell's tremendous banter. And I'm back to tell you about our new series on The Rest Is History, which is all about Britain in the 1970s, a period with a lot of uncanny resemblances to our own. So right now we're living through a moment when oil shocks generated by war in the middle, East are rippling through the world economy when Britain feels like it's sunk in a bit of a malaise.

People are arguing about Europe. The government has got a few issues with the trade unions. And we have a kind of, I suppose you'd say governing elite, a kind of political class that is really struggling to come to terms with all of these issues. And people are asking if Britain is governable at all. So there are a lot of parallels between that Britain that I'm describing, which is our Britain and the Britain of the mid-1970s. So in this series that's coming out on the rest is history, we'll be looking at these and other issues. We'll be talking about the rise of Margaret Thatcher,

obviously a colossal figure in our political life even now, whether you love her or loathe her. We'll be talking about the very first Brexit referendum of 1975, a subject that I'm sure Rory and Alistair will have strong opinions about. We'll be talking about the fall of the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, and we'll be talking about one of the grimest moments in Britain's economic history, the moment in 1976 when we had to go cap in hand, as people said at the time, to the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, for a then record bailout.

Now, if that sounds good to you, how could it not sound good to you? Of course it sounds good to you. We have a clip for you to listen to at the end of this episode. And if you want to hear more, just search for The Rest is history, wherever you get your podcasts. So you come from a very particular generation. In your 20s and 30s, you're the generation that came out of 1989, fall of the Berlin Wall, rise of the great idea of a liberal global order,

ultimately, you know, Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, we're all believing in free markets, we're all believing in human rights, spread a democracy around the world. And that must have had a deep, deep impact on your worldview, as it does for any of us who are going through our 20s and 30s of the way we view the world. And then the whole thing came crashing down, crashed down with a financial crisis, crashed down with the rise of social media, rise of populism. So I guess how have you come to terms with the crashing down of the old liberal global order?

What lessons have you taken from it? And what does that mean for what you're going to propose in the future? Well, I think that is an incredibly significant question. It's a thing I think about a lot actually, because you've got this demise of what, you know, I thought. was a trend of improvement in everyone's lives around the world. And the world was beginning to work together. I remember, you know, the London Olympics. I remember the Paris Treaty on Climate Change.

There was a sense, you know, just a few years ago that things were moving the right direction, even after the financial crisis. And then we got Brexit, we got Trump, we got Boltonaro, all the rest of the horrible stuff. And it's a wake-up call, I think, to progressives and to liberals. And those of us who, I think, from all political parties who believed in what you described as that global liberal order.

And the question is, how do we fight back? Can we fight back? I believe we can. I'm a real optimist. I have to be as liberal. I'm a Democrat, perhaps, but I am a liberal. I'm an optimist. And I think we can.

But we've got to be much smarter than we've been. So here's one example that I've internalized. And I think, it would be interesting your views on this, to be honest. what the authoritarian's do and the populists do is they speak to people's hearts but obviously in a way which appeals to people's, I would argue their worst prejudices, but they use emotion. And what liberal Democrats and liberals and progressive and social Democrats do a bit too often is they talk about the evidence and the reason and the rational argument vital, but they never get to the emotion. And if you want to win in this global battle between liberalism and authoritarianism, you've got to take people with you. They've got to believe that there's hope and there's optimism and that you care about them. And you're not some sort of liberal elite. And I think, you know, I'm sure all of us do, to be honest. I mean, that's what motivates us, isn't it? We want to make lives better for everybody in the world. And therefore, we've got to be smarter in how we make our arguments.

So, Ed, I'm completely with you that you've got to develop more emotional communication, but let's get to the core of the policy itself. How, for example, did the 2008 financial crisis change your view on economics? Looking back at the way you thought about the world in the 90s and 2000s, what did you get wrong about economics and what's the new economic analysis that the Lib Dems are going to present? I think the 2007-2008 financial crash was largely a financial sector crash. And I think the deregulation that occurred went way too far. And I think banks and a lot of the various financial institutions that have grown up in London, New York and elsewhere were able to get away with Blue Murder. And we're not held to

account. It comes back to my liberalism. Hold the powerful to account. But within the liberal Democrat sort of economic sliding scale, you are a deregulator. You're a believer in the private sector. You're not a kind of, you're not a heavy regulator. Well, I actually, I think you may have got me wrong a bit there, I'm astor. Good regulation can have a massive impact. Let me tell you a story from the coalition again about regulation. I was trying to regulate the private rented sector to require landlords to bring up

their properties to a higher standard of energy efficiency. and the regulation that I wanted to get through would say that you wouldn't be allowed to rent your house out unless you met these minimum efficiency standards. My biggest opo in the toys was Eric Pickles. Mr Pickles is a lot of mentions. Well, at once because I had a few clashes with him and on this one, he said to me at one stage,

Edmy old chum, regulations are communist. Regulations are communist. And I said to him, Eric, kill is a regulation and it came in before car marks. So I think the case for regulations in some areas, be it the financial sector, be it on climate, energy efficiency, the case of regulations is really strong. Okay, so just come back in. Firstly, huge congratulations on your amazing

imitation of Eric Pickles. I thought that was very good. We'd like to hear your impression of William Hayg and various others, but that was very good. You don't. That was very good. But I want to push you One more time on this question. Okay, everybody agrees we didn't regulate the banks enough. But that's not quite enough, is it, to make a real economic policy that deals with some of the fundamental problems? Why did the Northeast get left behind? Why have we ended up with an unbalanced economy? So what's the new economic policy that's going to be different from the liberal consensus, which we all grew up in conservative labor, Lib Dem in the 90s?

I'm including myself in this. I was part of that whole world. Okay. I think I see we're driving up. But I wouldn't blame the financial crash of 2007, 2008, for this bit, I think was much longer running. And it was how globalization more broadly played out. And that goes way beyond financial markets. It goes in manufacturing, all range of different parts of our economy.

And I think there you have a point. Because I think globalization, people forgot, you mentioned the Northeast. I think we forgot regions of the UK, nations and regions of the UK all the time. I think it was really poorly managed and thought through. And if there's one area, I don't think they've done very much about it, but an area that's debated now under this concerted government and leveling up, I think we all agree that we need to level up in our country, don't we? It strikes me that they've stopped even talking about.

Well, yeah, but to respond to Rory, I mean, it's absolutely true. some of the poorest regions and the whole of Europe are in our country. What Roy wants to know is what the Lib Dem will go to the next election saying that the Labour and the Tories wouldn't say. Well, there's, I would say a number of things, but I think, I mean, from my own experience, if I take what I think is going to be, have to be massive over the next decade or two, it's how we think about a changing economy to deal with net zero. And there's a huge opportunity here. We could lead the world like we were leading the world in offshore wind.

And the great thing I saw with renewables investment is that investment isn't all in London, the southeast. It's around the whole of the country. And we often talked about the renewables jobs we were getting the Northwest, the Northeast, in Yorkshire, in East Anglia, in Scotland and so on. And I genuinely think that if we did the right policies of Fonet Zero, whether it was in transport, electricity, heating, buildings, aviation, you could not only make as a world leader in many of these areas, and we could really be innovative and ahead in the technology, but you could use that as a vehicle for addressing some of these gross inequalities in our country. Now, let's talk about Brexit. You took a long time.

I mean, as I was driving, Fiona and I coming back from France early today and sit there and I said, right, we'll talk a day later. What shall I ask him? She said, ask him who you should vote for if what you really, really, really, really want is for Britain to be back in the European Union. So what's your answer to that? Well, if you really want to vote for the most pro-European party in British politics, who can exercise real influence Westminster as you vote Liberal Democrat, that may not be exactly what Fiena wants, but we remain in terms of a UK-wide policy. You've gone very quiet on Brexit. You've gone very, very quiet.

Labour don't talk about it, you don't talk about it. Well, and it's a disaster. It is a disaster. I mean, listen, we campaigned against it. I think it's a disaster. We voted against the deal. We actually have well thought through policy about how we would rebuild our relationship with Europe.

The challenge that we've all got to recognize, I think, is first of all, we've got to work out by language that we take people with us in this country. You know, we're talking about emotional language and dealing with the authoritarian debate before, we've got to find a language which is not divisive. We do not want to go back to the divider

nation that we suffer. We need to take people with us. And I don't think we're quite there yet in that sort of language. We're working hard at that. Do the Liberal Democrats want the UK one day to be back in the European Union? We want Britain to be at the heart of Europe.

That's not why asked. He's answering your question there. The reason why I do that out is It's going to be a journey because I mentioned the language that we talk about this to rebuild the pro-European case in Britain. And I take that very seriously and we massively contribute to it, I think. But there's also the other side of the call which never gets thought about, which is how European countries and politicians think about us. You know, thanks to Mrs. Johnson, Truss and Sunak and the whole most concerted party with a few notable exceptions like Rory, they've just lost trust in us.

And, you know, they're going to take more than just a change of government to simply go, oh, right, that the British nation wants to be part of Europe again. And we've got to find a way to reach out to our European colleagues. And so when I talk about this, as a passionate pro-European, I talk about rebuilding that trust, rebuilding those relationships. So we can cooperate more on trade and security and climate and all the many things that are. absolutely in our national interest. That sounds to me like a wrenching shift in the Lib Dems. I remember you in 2019 being the absolute standard bearers for rejoining the European Union. And it now looks like you're very, very cautious about saying the kind of things that somebody

like Alistair would instinctively want to hear. And is that not a bit of a problem for your voter base? I mean, I guess there are many, many voters like Alistair out there who want to hear a party say, this is a terrible disaster. And we're going to fix it. We're going to rejoin the customs union. at least, or we're going to get back into the single market, and we've got a pan to try to get it back in. Are you not missing out in 30% of your voter base?

No, I think we're really credible on how you face up to this issue, taking the UK with us, because I don't think anyone wants to go back to those divisions, and facing up to the reality of where European politics is at. But that comes from a very pro-European business. We haven't given up on the idea that cooperation with our neighbours is our interest. and we were an internationalist part. No, I get that, but both you and Labor, I think, are missing huge open goal in going out to the people and explaining, I get you got to be, get the emotional language right, they've been sold up up up. It's a disaster.

It's damaging them and their lives and their livelihoods and their public services. And we've got to fix it. Yeah. Well, I mean, to some extent, we do say that. To a very sot-o-voche. No, no, because I'll tell you, you know this. You've been a campaign. your life, Alistair, when you talk to people on the doorstep, what are the issues that come up

that we have to address? Cost of living. And cost of living. Health service. They're affected by Brexit. Of course they are, but not exclusively. And suggests that they are, frankly. No, I don't suggest that.

Well, and therefore, because voters don't know that it's not just the European thing that's affected the health service. The Conservatives have made a complete hash of it. Cost of living. It's not just what's happened in Ukraine and so on. it's a lot of very poor economic policies. They want to know what you're going to do about that. They want to know how you're going to help pay for their food bills, their mortgages, their rent, their energy bills.

They want to know, you know, when they're going to get a GP appointment, can they get an NHS dentist? It seems to be reasonable for a political party who wants to beat lots of conservatives to point out where they're failing people on the issues that matter most to people. Now, in our proposition next election, yes, of course, we will also set out. our European agenda. We're not hiding it. Come on, the liberal Democrats. The one of the other thing we like to do is past policy. We have got lots of policy. What I want to do is to make sure we're connecting that to people to rebuild trust in politics in the liberal Democrats. And that's why we are, a lot of our campaigns are reflecting the concerns of people. Okay, policy then. As quickly as you can, one minute, summarize your vision for policy, what the policies we're expecting for the

lip temps. Well, we will focus on the economy, we will focus on the NHS and care, and we'll focus on things like the environment. There will be our issues. And within those, on the economy, we're going to have a very ambitious green strategy, environmental policies linked to the future economy. We're going to have a very, very ambitious position on trade because we absolutely, our trade position is in a dire straits. We're going to do a lot on small businesses who feel pretty neglected. The self-employed in particular feel incredibly neglected by this government. So those are sorts of things on the economy.

There's plenty of others, but they are some of our key areas. And then I'd say on NHS and care, one of the things that I've said when I first became the leader, partly because of my personal experience, but also because of my own analysis, I think you've got to sort out social care and how families are supported in the care they give to loved ones given they deliver most of the care in our country. And if you don't sort out that, you'll never sort out the NHS. So my sort of soundbite is, if you care about the NHS, you've got to care about care. And that's the sort of professional social care that everyone talks about from care homes,

domestic care and so on when you deal with that aspect of it. But I think the family carers is the bit that's not talked about enough. The carer's allowance is a scandal. It's so low. the level of support, the respite care is dreadful. And if you look at mental health among family carers, you look at poverty, if you look at the way women have to do so much of the caring, you can deal with so much in our society if you get policy right for family carers.

Now, my penultimate question, it won't surprise you. He's about Brexit. I would ask you this. What on earth was Joe Swinson doing in gifting Boris Johnson? the election that he'd been gagging for just at the moment when the people's vote campaign, which you were involved in and I was involved in,

felt like it actually finally got the momentum that it needed. And she comes out and says, we're going to have this election because I can be Prime Minister. Madness. I think that's a slight rewriting of history. It's a major rewriting, actually, Alice. It's not quite how I remember it.

But she basically came out and said this was the right time of an election. It couldn't have been a worse time to have an election. Well, first of all, people forget that the conservatives were quite capable of getting election themselves and there was a lot of nonsense spoken about. They could have got their election that time. When I reflect on being leader now for a few years, I also affect that Jay was leader for a very short period. She was, took over from Vince and had, what, four, five months before she faced the electorate. That was challenging for anybody. For sure, but she, I just sort of feel she, the Tories laid a

trap and she and the SMB jumped into it. Well, there were lots of debates there and a part of the debate was, is the election going to be now in three weeks time, in three months' time? There was a real sense that election was going to happen. It was a question of when. Some of us wanted to stick out for a little bit more of a chance to get a vote on the second referendum. It would have been another vote.

We'd had previous ones. But, you know, I think liberal Democrats were champion. in the case for a second referendum, and we, you know, needed to push that as far as we possibly could. But, you know, these judgments are always difficult, but I think to blame Joe Solie for that is unfair. Can I just come back then with my last question? I'd love to give you a chance to reflect a little bit back on caring for a disabled son and what that experience is like and what you've taken from that. And I think maybe how that was different from caring for your mother. Well, I mean, caring for my mother was mostly fairly tragic.

I mean, I got to know her really, really well, and so I became very, very close to her because I'd sit on lying on the bed and talk to her for hours. But, you know, she was dying. There's not a happy ending, really. Whereas my son, you know, I wish he could walk and wish she could talk and I wish she didn't have his learning disabilities and so on. But I have a great relationship with him.

And yes, you know, like all parents, caring for disabled children. It's time-consuming. It's challenging and it has its downsides as well. And it's pretty full-on personal care. And it would be difficult if I wasn't a London MP, I'll tell you, because I need to be there. But I have a great relationship with him. And, you know, it might sound odd to you, but we joke about his naughty parrot. I bought him this parrot that talks back to him and it's a big thing, his naughty parrot. he is obsessed by it and at the moment his latest obsession is Henry the Hoover. He likes hoovering his room

and wants to do it the whole time. And so we have our little jokes like I think most parents too were the kids. But my biggest thing for him, and I'm sure this is for parents of all kids, but I think it's particularly for disabled kids, is my biggest worry in life is what happens when I'm not there.

You know, because I'm a relatively old dad. You know, we work hard to improve as independence. You know, I call it first of all, toilet independence. I had a red letter a few years, a few days ago, a few weeks ago, he went to the toilet by himself. He's speaking, we originally thought he'd be nonverbal. He says a few words now.

He's some amazing speech or language therapist. He's beginning to put sentences together so he can express what he wants. So I want to make him as independent with all these amazing people so that when I'm not here, he can be as independent as possible and express his concern and tell him. people who love him and care for him, what's happening. So, you know, I think when you are a care for your child, I guess it could be for any person you love, you do worry about what happens when you're not there and you try to do

as much as you possibly can without, you know, not going to live in the moment as well and enjoy, enjoy that. But you have those, you have to think and you have to plan. Something else, Phil and I were talking about at our long drive back, was because we talked about this and your son and what that must be like, because there were we, we weren't party leaders. We were working for a party leader with three healthy, able-bodied children, doing well at school, and yet found the pressures of parenthood sometimes overwhelming. And I think Rory feels the same,

that sometimes just as parents of healthy, able-bodied children, the full-time commitment that you need to work in campaigning and you're going to be leading a party in a pivotal general election campaign for this country's history. I don't know how you do that. I don't know how you find the energy to be the carer. But the main answer is my wife. Right.

I mean, Emily is fantastic. But you're going to have to campaign and at the same time, I mean, how much time do you envisage spending with your son when you're out on the campaign trail? Not as much as I like But you know We have carers who helped us And that's challenging because finding carers is not always easy

We have family who help us And you know When you are caring for everyone It's happened with my mother It happens with John And you find people who were just amazingly wonderful And supportive When my mum was ill

It was the Mulhotra family across the road And the doubt is Who are a few streets away Who are just friends of the family who'd come with either curries or with lasagna or whatever. Isn't that amazing? They've both got the names of Labour MPs. Something's

happening here, Ed. Something's happening here. Listen, there was a Sue Doughty was a Liberal Democrat MP, so don't get two potty's on me, Alistair, once a spin doctor, always a spin doctor. Just trying to get you guys closer together just in case that numbers fall.

So, you know, that's how you get through. You know, good, strong families. The thing about my mother, with my grandmother, my son, is we were lucky in that we had strong, loving family. And I worry about, and I think we should all worry about, are those people who've got these demanding caring roles where they don't have that support? And, you know, I was talking about the difference between liberal Democrats and Labour people

earlier. You know, sometimes the state can help. And the state does need to support care. family carers and care professionals, far more. And it's one of the things I, as you can see, feel fairly passionate about. We're really fortunate. We're not badly off.

We have the support network, family support and elsewhere. But what about those carers who don't? And it's a serious issue because if we don't get this right, if you look at all the projections, demographic projections and aging population and so on, and the number of long-term illnesses that predict and so on, predict and something. If we don't get this right, the NHS will be in a problem. So I'm going to be campaign, come back to my policy next election, Rory. I'm going to be campaigning for carers.

That's what I'm going to do. Very good. Well, thank you. I mean, I really, really appreciate it. It's been wonderful to have you be so wide-ranging, so honest, so personal. And I'll hand back to Alistair for the final words and sorts. Thanks, Roy. Thank you. No, I've really enjoyed it. And I hope that you promised me that you won't do too many of those Lib Dem campaign stunts during the campaign. Oh, many more to come. There are lots and lots. Don't you like them? I thought you love them.

I don't mind them. I don't bind them. I think sometimes your desperation for visibility can take you to some dark places. I think they put a smile on people's faces. That's great. So there'll be more of those. Yeah, yeah. Good. Definitely. All the best. We love to talk with you.

Thank you for wearing a burny-coloured tie. I'm a not scantist supporter. I know. All the best. Thank you. Bye. Goodbye. Thanks a lot. So, Rory, Sir Ed Davy, what's compose? Well, I thought, I mean, first of the, I think, very, very moving and extraordinary his experiences.

And the echoes between caring for his mother and caring for his son. And I think almost that's where he becomes most alive, where he's most fluent, where he's most emotional. I do still remain not completely sold. and I'd be interested in you as a communications expert if you can reflect on why someone like me who should be the perfect kind of Lib Dem voter in the next election, what do you think he could have done more

to really win over a swing voter like me because I liked him but I didn't feel completely energized to rush out and put my tick in the box. I agree with you. I think he's very, very likable. You're up in Scotland doing this down the line and I'm in London and was in the studio with him, So have that sort of bit before and after and all that.

What I really liked about him is the conversations that we're having outside were very similar to the ones that we're having inside. There's a sort of, I think, a naturalness to him which is very likable. That's the first time. I've met him a few times. The first time I've had a sort of proper conversation with him. What could he have done for you? I think when we were onto policy, I got the feeling that he's still trying to work out exactly how the Liberal Democrats are going to. position themselves at the next election.

And also I think that I'd have liked a bit more maybe of, you know, I thought he was going to take us down the whole kind of, you know, science, technology, artificial intelligence route with a bit of detail. But I agree with you. I think where he really came alive was when he was talking about being a carer and translating that into policy. By the way, he is right. There doesn't need to be that.

I just wanted a bit more of, you know, I guess economic education policy, that kind of thing. It does feel as though the election, I mean, without being unfair to them, but in a sense, Rishi Sunak, Ed Davy, Kierstama, all are sort of, you know, feel as though they're slightly, tonally similar. They're quite sort of, they come across as quite kind of earnest. They're obviously projecting themselves as kind of diligent. So there's nobody going into that next election who's really, I think, ticks the old-fashioned charisma thing. But I also thought as an ex-politician that if somebody asked me, go on, give us a minute on your policies, that should be totally fluent. That should be just ready to go. You should have three sentences bang off the top. Our economic policy is based on this on trade, this on industrial strategy, this on regulation. My care policy is going to be based on this income, this expenditure, this change. I mean, because you're supposed to have practiced. it again and again so you can do your one sentence and one paragraph answer anything and it's odd

that he he's not quite there yet yeah i think that's right i think that's right i thought that was uh he he seemed to be thinking aloud a little bit to me i've not heard him do many long-form interviews i've not already heard him before talking about his his childhood in that way i've not heard him talk really much about his son i suspect that they came into that interview thinking right well this is a long interview we're talking to people to a very politically engaged audience. The one thing I was interested in that, I don't, I think he didn't want to come over as a sort of retail politician coming on a program like this and thinking, right, now I must land

the right soundbite. It's interesting when he talked about a soundbite. He actually said, you know, the sound bite I uses. And I almost said to him, you know, because Kier Starber does that as well. He often, you'll get a question in an interview and he'll say, as I've said many times before. Yeah. And, you know, it's a way of saying, I'm a bit embarrassed to say this because it's a line. Yeah.

But actually, part of the art of political communication is just say it like it's the first time you've ever said it. You've got to embrace it and believe it with conviction because you've got to be proud of it because your job is to communicate and translate. And I mean, it would be, I mean, you need the faith. I mean, it's true that I guess if you were a priest, you're not embarrassed reciting your creed. That's the deal. That's what your job is. He did quote one of the Ten Commandments, though, didn't he? That's right.

That's right to Eric Pickles, no less. I don't know if you know this, really. He was born on Christmas Day. No. Goodness. Well, there's that. He could do something with that. That could be a real Lib Dem campaign stunt.

Absolutely. God knows what. Anyway, I did like him, though. I found him very, very likable. Yeah, I really warmed him. I really warmed him. And I thought his personal story is extraordinary. And, of course, it's reassuring having somebody like,

that running. I mean, I think he will be a deeply reassuring figure. He's somebody who I'm sure would, you know, be a really good person in government. It's unfortunate in a sense that he's running an election in which that's sort of what the other two candidates are trying to run on too. So it's less easy for him to differentiate himself. I have to say, I hope he wasn't being wholly un-economical with the truth when he said that he didn't see Keir Stahmer very often. I hope they're seeing each other very regularly to say, right, listen, I'm not campaigning here. I put no money in there. That way you take a free ride because I really do think that the country wants that to happen. The big driving thing, as he said, is get the juries out. So best way to do that.

100%. And I think final reflection is just interesting that he's three years into it. I didn't quite feel that he was three years into it. It felt slightly as though he was newer to the job. I'm surprised that this is somebody who's been the leader for three years. Yeah, but you know one of the differences, this is why Parliament matters so much, he doesn't get called at prime minister's questions very often. You know, the third party now is the SNP. Right. So the SMP leader gets two questions and Ed gets called every now and then. It's very hard for the Liberal Democrats to get visibility.

Well, thank you, Alison. Thank you for bringing him on. I thought it was a really, really interesting interview. And I shall see you soon. See you soon.