James O’Brien meets Sir Ed Davey | LBC

Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Ed Davey has been a carer for most of his life. First for his mum, who died of cancer when he was just 15. Then for his Nana and now, he and his wife Emily care for their disabled son John. Ed could be furious at the world – but he’s not. Instead, he has spent his political career standing up for carers and fighting for investment in the NHS and social care. Ed tells James how his personal experiences have shaped his politics and why he’s committed to making real change happen.
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Hello and welcome to full disclosure a podcast project designed to let me spend more time than I could ever get on the radio show with interesting people and I I suspect that most people who interview you at Davey Begin by saying they had no idea how interesting you are how much

How much life you have lived yeah I guess that’s true I mean I haven’t talked about it very much to be honest before during my political career but reality is when you’re leader of a party people ask more searching questions about your your background and

Where you came from and who you are and so yeah had to speak more about it than perhaps I would have been comfortable speaking about it yes I I I mean I sense that that it’s not you’re not an oversharer but you since becoming leader recognize that that some of your

Personal circumstances are pertinent to your political Mission but I and we’ll get to that but I was thinking more of your childhood actually and the fact that you you barely knew your father H um and and lost your mother at a at an unconscionably young age as well so what

What what do you remember do you remember your dad at all hardly at all I have this image of him in a trench coat in the back of the car collecting me with my mom and driving from Nursery School that’s my son one image CU he was

Ill it because he was diagnosed with hodkin disease form of cancer in the November and died in the March and so he was probably picking me up in the in that sort January um the memory I have of him really is more from what Mom used

To say yes yeah so so she was widowed age 36 with four with three boys under the age of 10 uh my eldest brothers were nine and six and I was four um and um she would talk about him to the three of us because obviously she wanted to let

Us know what it was like um and I guess I have a slightly idealized view of him as you can imagine uh and uh far fatherhood and being a father was something that I thought I really wanted to be and um I wanted to be as good as

My dad was even though I didn’t really know very well but um uh so I don’t really have much memory of and it’s really all through my mother initially through her grief and then as she wanted us to know what he was like um he he he

Had made quite big leaps from his background had he to become a solicitor in in in Nottingham sh from from a mining background and I read that your mother’s Grandparents were domestic servants I think well her parents were actually it was actually her parents your grandparents so full sort of Downtown

Abby territory yeah well we used to call it Upstairs Downstairs I don’t remember there was a a sky made the lowest of the low downstairs called Ruby yeah and my nana used to say she used to be Ruby and my granddad was a gardener in a big you

Know big house in the countryside and I can’t quite remember how they met um but they met very young married before they were 20 uh and had my M pretty quickly foot in a different era isn’t it that in a way well if you go back to the start

Of the 1900s millions of people were were Co miners or or domestic servants so I actually think my story if you if you dug down to many peop it would be the same but not but maybe so close generationally I suppose although I guess we’re all getting old aren’t we we

We forget and and it was miners on your dad’s side was it in in Manfield woodh house I don’t think his uh dad was a minor but I think most of his family were I think his dad was a builder right um but it was a mining Village and uh

You know the the mines the cery were the core of the economy yes of course so you don’t know then having not known him um at all really how what that Journey was like that whether or not he had great expectations placed upon him from from an essentially working class background

To end up in a very middle class world yeah um I think his brother his elder brother my uncle Les no longer with us looked up to him very much and I think he was probably the only one who could control his his mother who was

Apparently a bit of a character she got thrown out of six Care Homes so she was interest character uh but my dad dad went to University studied law became solicor and it was definitely social Mobility use the technical term and um yeah he I think he had this huge

Advantage uh because he had set up two uh law practic one in certain Ashfield one in Kurby Ashfield both pretty mining working-class areas and could speak to the business people using his university sort of tones uh but he could speak to anyone who came in the street whatever

The background and you know I think he was relatively successful uh but then it was a life that was cut short I suppose possibly being four you you you felt his lost less keenly than your brothers did was it undoubtedly undoubtedly I mean the truth is I think when you’re that

Age you don’t really notice it they bounce off you and and kids actually my my experience but my personal experience and looking at other others kids can sort of take quite a few knocks as long as they’re in a loving environment and my mother was obviously very loving to

Us my n and Granda were loving so it was Secure environment um as long as you’ve got that then you can manage some of the knocks um and I think actually adults uh come feel the pain more because they’ve got such a close relationship with

Whoever died and so in the case with my mother my my nana and Granddad uh my mom was their only child you could see that she heartbreak and when you got to school you you you were you conscious of of being a bit different from the other

Kids by Dent of not having a dad around a little bit I’m but I don’t want to overplay that um because you know my brothers had gone to the school same school so I knew the school quite stable part of my life um mom was extremely

Caring and strong and uh I I don’t didn’t think I had lost a lot to be honest it was only when my mom became ill that I began to really feel a bit different to be honest yes I’m sure what we’ll come to that I mean it’s it’s actually unbearable seeing it written

Down in black and white you basically had 10 years didn’t you without major grief and Trauma in your life so let’s talk about those 10 years a bit what were you like at school were you a bright kid yeah I think so um you know I had the advantage of knowing what was

Coming cuz I’d seen my brothers and I guess um yeah I was Lu that way and I seem to do you know pretty okay at what did you like what did you I mean were you a sportsman were you a I was into everything I mean it wasn’t that good at

Sport right I like playing football but I was not the Star by any stretch of imagination but you know I like studying I like history like geography English languages I liked when I was growing up bit a bit older I liked debating I played a music instrument not very well

Were you like debating were you good at debating fairly good I think I mean I learned some skills back then you know what about the Killer Instinct what about the winning an argument even when you’re wrong skill which people like Boris Johnson developed at a similar age

Uh I think my experience sounds very different from Mr Johnson’s fair enough um I mean I tell you what the the real funny thing is was we were in the boys school and there’s a girl school across the road and um the the main the senior debating Society

Wouldn’t allow some of the youngsters in okay uh but it was uh just for the boys and and I decided that with my mates that we’d have a joint debating Society with the girls school so we created the sort of younger Junior debating Society um and there were lots of motives for

Doing that yes I can well imagine um so was a happy childhood until your mom’s diagnosis really I think that’s fair I mean um you know I remember playing in the streets uh playing with my brother playing football playing tennis you know had toys I didn’t really want for for

Anything I mean mom was quite tight to be honest because wasn’t a lot of money around my father had in his will left money for our education but that had meant that we were relatively tight and you know memories of Mom making us walk right up this hill to the top of

Sherwood which is the nearest little shopping uh place because you heard that Cost Cutters had coffee at 2p Less on the jar so and when we got back from the um from the Market she would make us check off you know the the long receipts you get we’d literally have to put

Everything away and check that it was on the receipt so we hadn’t been overcharged so I learned some some of those skills I guess we go PPE later at um what’s the classic liberal position on private education I’ve never been entirely clear uh listen we we think in

A free Society if people want to to educate their children differently from the state they should be allowed to it’s a philosophical position do you feel the gear change then because you when you’re talking about yourself and your your background do you does it happen very naturally or

Or do you feel a gear changing inside you when you shift into party leader mode from from Ed Davy we could be having a conversation anywhere to Ed Davy now I speak for the liberal Democrat Party could you feel it inside or do you just shift I I I think it’s

It’s it’s natural really um I’ve been an MP for quite a long time now you haven’t been leader for that long no well it’s getting on for four years so I suppose in the mod in the modern that’s an absolute Eon isn’t it contrast that to

The Tes yeah but but you I mean obviously there have been previous leaders in post for for a lot longer but but you do does the line between the two blur a bit as time goes by well I hope so I mean I I like and want to be the

Politician I am as a person I don’t want to be any different really because um uh my who I am as a person is very much informs my politics um what I learned over my life and both my private life my my work life is what I want to bring to

The debate uh cuz I think you know we’ve been talking a lot about the care uh and the family situation um I think I’ve always empathized with people who’ve had struggles in their life um and you know I don’t think it’s their fault I think there’s a they need some support we can

Debate about what that support should be but they deserve support when they they’re on hard times and I also think care as a as an issue is one that most politicians have not talked about don’t really understand and when we think about something like the Health Service

My experience is if you sorted out the care you’d have really helped the Health Service and the fact that these two are still after all these years seem to separate is a huge huge mistake the fact the system still divides them is I think an example of why as a little Democrat I

Think we need big change big change and and I’ve I’ve heard politicians talk about knitting the two together for for the last 10 years and oh longer longer but they’ve just failed to do it and I think there’s a set of vested interest in that you know uh vested interest in

Whiteall vested interest in the Health Service vested interest in the pharmaceutical industry um and the value value that we place on care whether it’s care from professional carers who should be valued more in my view paid more um as well as family carers um we just don’t value

Them and by the way I think there’s also um an issue here about equality because if you look at who provides most of the care it’s women yes and if you look at the impact of care it creates uh less money if you’ve got to care for someone

You can’t earn so there’s a social justice issue there so while I’ve been talking about care in the context of looking after carers and the impact that has on the Health Service I actually think there’s a gender equality issue here and a social equality issue here um

I can see why although you’re own experience it wasn’t a woman who um was doing the caring it was a 12-year-old boy when your mom was first diagnosed with with breast cancer do do you remember that do you remember how how did she break it to you and your

Brothers well there were two moments uh the first one I was nine when she told us I remember it was Christmas at my grandparents and she told us all individually that she was going to have to have a myectomy have her breast removed right um and um that was she was

Amazing cuz she made it sound like it was S as a matter of fact and not to worry and so on and I didn’t worry um but as occasionally happens with breast cancer it can come back okay and what’s called secondary cancer uh and for her it was secondary cancer on the bones

That was when you were 12 and that was when I was 12 and uh she had to then break that to us because that was you know really quite serious you could begin to tell the impact on her on her walking in particular um and um she was in great pain and the

Pain just got worse and worse and you knew you were going to lose her well what part of me did right but the the what what she engendered in US was being as positive as we could be and and fighting it and she really fought it um

She fought it first of all in the NHS giving it all through all the treatment chemo radiotherapy the works and then when the NHS said this nothing more we can do for you she checked out and she went to a naturopath and um she had to have have

All these vitamin pills she then had to change her diet and so she was uh basically able to eat apple juice and carrot juice and I would spend hours juicing apples and carrots in the kitchen and a bit of cottage cheese it was a weird diet um because she was

Desperate she was desperate to to fight this for her sons and um and for herself but she she wanted to be there for us and you could feel that she she did everything she could and I’m I’m sure the way she behaved the way she pronged

Life by the way there a lot more hideous things I could tell you about what she was doing in order to get herself well um looking back on it um I can’t imagine what was going through her mind but you can in a sense because she was motivated

By a terror of what would happened to you and your brothers when you when she wasn’t there and you have the same sense with your son yeah I mean I think be it that your son needs a lot of looking after in a way that you yeah didn’t at

That age well I think uh every parent um wants to do the best for their child whe they got disability or not and the idea of of of leaving them is horrific particularly leaving them early I mean my father wrote me and my brother’s little letters still got my little

Letter gosh um and uh my mother obviously didn’t want to to lose her I remember the one conversation had with her just as give a little yeah Sketch I’d been uh away on a school trip to Germany I must have been 14 or something and we’ve been messing around

On the coach and we there was a coach of uh young German uh children at our age and we waited them went and talked to them and I got talking to this girl and took a picture of me and this young girl probably exchanged about four words

About German with her um but I showed mom the picture of her and she said I wonder who you’ll end up with God so she was begin to think you know um knowing she wasn’t going to be there and what my life was going to be like the

Things she’d never know and we talked for hours on her bed because I um my other brother who did most of the carrying with me was Henry and he was doing his uh a levels really and I wasn’t I wasn’t near exams and I would just spend hours um lying on a bed

Chatting to often about nonsense right nothing NE profound and we she splashed out on a remote control TV which was and we watch TV together there’s a it’s a strange one I I’ve not been I wasn’t bereaved young but there are so many different ways in which it can happen

That the sudden snuffing out of life with no one being prepared for it but sometimes having that period in which to communicate and and and prepare I think can be very valuable I mean it sounds quite formative for you well it was and and we would say the saying we had was

We take each day as it comes and we we sort of knew what the M was going to not be great but let’s try and enjoy it and you know I said earlier that my mom was tight when she knew she was terminally ill she started spending

Money and and you know both to have a good time yes but also to have give us good memories yeah okay so we went on holiday to Jersey right with my auntie Margaret um so his mom Auntie Margaret and the three of us and we had a great time uh and um we

Were enjoying because we get money spent on having fun and she she did bu a Telly and we started doing a few things that previously um she wouldn’t have done so we had some fun and they were great memories and she was very very perceptive and and and you and Henry had

To shoulder quite a bit of the medical burden as well you’d administer some of her morphine I think yeah I mean thing about bone cancer is it’s very very painful um and you can can’t sh other than very very strong pain col so morphine was the main one not the only

One and we had a big Bell jar in our in our kitchen I I don’t think they let you do it these days seems unlikely and you’d have to pour out uh some the pure morphine and something to mix with it and i’ take it with her she also had

Some injections which um I prepare for her and she had I mean it sounds almost um medieval but she had these Electric Shot shocks that she’d administered to herself so I would put these four uh rubber black pads on and they were attached to a machine and she could give

Herself electric shocks to sort of D the pain it’s a bit like women who are um in labor so it’s the same sort of idea is it good Lord and because this is all you know you don’t know quite how out of the ordinary it is I presume you sort of you

Know it’s not normal but it is it’s you and mom and your life well that’s right in the sense you know you take every days it comes and it is what you know all I had was this person who I love more than anything else and I wanted to

I wanted to just do what I could and and then you’re orphaned at 15 it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s unbearably poignant really to think of you essentially depending on your brother initially and your grandparents to be looked after why didn’t you go off the rails Ed

Davey um well I think the thing I want to say is I still had some fun yes of course I’m not suggesting you were a square but a lot of kids at this point could have you could have been furious with the world and I don’t sense that

You were well I think it was cuz of my mom the amazing person she was she prepared me and we were ready and although actually was by her bedside when she died that was in hospital in hospital I think you were in school uniform that’s right I I was ready for

That moment and it shook me up but actually there was a sense of relief yeah because of her pain been so much pain and I remember her face changing as she after she died and you could see almost like the pain had had gone from

Her so um you know I was loved I had a secure setting we weren’t uh rich but we weren’t badly off we had our own house and so on and um so there was a lot of luck there lot of love there and um there was a moment when I I think I

Decided I wouldn’t go go off the ra rail so um I go back sometimes living with my grandparents in north naure but the 10 times I go back on the the weekend Place sport or see my mates um and I stay by myself in our Bungalow in mapley park

And just outside the C Cent City Center and um some i’ study there right and I was getting up to my o levels and I said to myself are you going to you going to work hard mate why why are you doing this do you really want to do this cuz

Previously I’d to make my mom happy there’s no one to get into trouble with there’s no one to let down yeah there’s no one to tell me off there’s no one to to make happy with me make PR make make someone proud um and I realized I if I

Was going to do this it was all about doing it for myself and I had to take that decision there and then are you going to do this mate yeah and I really remember in our kitchen by myself saying right I am going to do it now I had the advantage

Of Two Brothers who’d already done it ahead of me and obviously I didn’t want to sure be shown up so other reasons as well but I I remember it more like a Rubicon moment for me and I I we should register one of the downsides one of the more prosaic

Downsides of looking after your mom was the fact that you wouldn’t be able to engage you mentioned coming back to see your mates after you lost her but before that you wouldn’t be able to immerse yourself fully in school life would you you wouldn’t be able to yeah there just

A few things I couldn’t do the big one was rugby so I used to pay rugby a tie head Believe It or Not uh uh but then when Mom became ill I couldn’t get anyone take me to the matches anyone to you know wash the rugby gear all the

Stuff that a kid needs someone to do for them and um and also I couldn’t afford to be injured uh which was a part of a mom’s that’s an amazing thing to take on board as a boy isn’t it you could that knowledge you can’t afford to be injured

Because your mom is relying on you yeah but uh you know she did she was just so good at thinking through things and helping us plan and then I had my grandparents and relationship with my grandparents was very close it had been difficult with my grandmother during

Mom’s illness because she was just so devastated by it and she used to fuss and and annoy my mother a bit because she was fussing so much and of course my mom was toward her mother and there was just a tension there this was understandable um and actually I wrote

An essay from my English ol level about this ition and how difficult it was um and um I handed it to my teacher Les Wilkinson and he read it and he said I I can’t Mark that and gave it back um but uh yeah it was it was a

Moment but my my grand was uh amazing to recover from it and my granddad um who I was a sort of the closest male figure I had after after my dad died uh the real thing that made me angry you mentioned could I I got angry I did get angry when

He died when I was 18 God and he died suddenly of a heart attack um and I was really quite cross about that yeah quite cross but you were on your way by then weren’t you you clearly that Rubicon you crossed in the in the The Bungalow of

The kitchen you did your o levels and you did well enough to set your sites on Oxford University was that I mean I don’t want to punctuate every two minutes of this conversation with with the with the with the bereavement but the pride your mom would have felt

If you’d got in when you did was that with you do you do you oh uh there are moments in my life when I think of her yes um and it’s more her cuz I didn’t read my dad but they would they got married yeah the kids I mean they’re the

Really important moments in your life um I wish you’d known Emily and John and Ellie um but yeah you know getting Ed um yeah key moments that you would like your parents to be there I can’t quite conceive of it most people won’t be able

To cuz at that age everything you do is for your parents every time you get into trouble it’s them you think of first every time you pull something off it’s them you want to ring or it’s them you want to get in touch with did I mean did

You sail through your A Levels did you discover you mentioned Les Wilkinson you clearly had teachers who saw something special in you did they took you under their wing they they they yeah I mean you know my brothers have been at school before uh my eldest brother got into

Oord my middle brother that got into Cambridge so the going to Oxford not a bad set of results is it was wasn’t bad it wasn’t and you know the school was a great school yeah uh very academic and I had some great teachers and I and to be

Honest also and this is always missed in education I had some great mates and we talk and think and and have fun together um and here’s a confession now because uh we still kept the house and my parents were there obviously and my grandparents were away

I could hold the best parties yes so we used to have people back and have some fun and it was the end of a cue sack so there were no neighbors to um to annoy at least don’t think I annoyed them um there were the mahotas over the road

Who’ been fantastic when Mama had been ill and brought us carries and things and uh the slacks to the other side and Mr Mrs slack I think they were quite elderly and a bit hard of hearing right so we could turn we could turn the music up we haven’t mentioned politics yet

Have we but but that we’ll see where that pops up because you take a year off before going up to Oxford was that was that a conscious decision you decided you wanted a bit of space you wanted to see a bit of the world or be it that for

For a while at least you ended up in a PK Pie Factory yeah well let me tell you I mean to be honest my brothers have done it again so I’m following my brothers there’s a bit of a theme here um and um I just wanted a bit of time

Out um I start off actually going to place called Salamanca in Spain because I’d done French and German a level uh and I fancied going to Latin America and I thought I’d learn Spanish so went uh enrolled in a private college had to pay for it it was fine in Salamanca did that

For a month Salamanca is the F most fantastic place in the world it’s lovely and then I uh got a job teaching a lady English uh in Madrid for a month and I got free board and lodging and studied during the day and went around all all

Of Madrid El pra for example then all the little towns and cities near near Madrid and then I had a month uh at the end of the year um hitchhiking around Spain it was the problem was I I’d pack my bag in August September not realizing that Spain gets quite cold in

November and you know I have this image and memory of me sort of by the roadside with with my thumb up trying to hit your lift jumping up and down to keep myself warm you um I I I kind of conscious of the self-sufficiency that you display at this age but it’s

Kind of obvious why that would be cuz youve you’ve had to orbe it that your brother’s clearly huge part of your life you you you’ve had to in a sense look after yourself in a way that most teenagers don’t so the year off and going up to Oxford wouldn’t have been

Anywhere near as um as big a wrench as they would be for for for people from more conventional background to be honest well before that I’d done a lot of traveling so after you got a particular facility for languages no I’m not that good are you not I I I like it

I like speaking to people from other countries and uh like you know you didn’t do languages at University did you you did politics philosophy because I was wise because I’m not not good at it uh but um I enjoy it and it’s fun um and but the traveling

I’ve done before was after Mama died I wanted to go uh interrailing it’s a thing that people did they do I remember and it’s great fun um but I realized I probably shouldn’t go by myself cuz I was only 15 so I spent some time talking

To the parents of three of my mates persuading them that I have this plan with my Thomas Cook uh guide to European Railways uh the timetable uh and the international youth hostel Association and I I booked 10 Knights at different youth hostels around Europe and I showed

Them all the bookings and I persuade them to allow their sons to come with me and the that’s that’s quite remarkable isn’t it do you think they were frightened of saying no because you were I don’t know you’ve suffered enough at this point in your life we can’t be

The ones responsible for dashing interrailing dream I don’t know that but we had a lot of fun and um yeah the things I remember for that my lovely gr when I go into railing she’d bit me a cake a big fruit cak and I put the top

Of my ruck sack and sort the last thing I needed because I got this full Ruck and and she’d put a little sticker on the top saying take a knife oh oh that’s lovely um and and then some jobs so briefly before we get to University you

Did did did sort of classic Gap yeah jobs Postman I think I think you worked in boot boots is from your part of the world isn’t it Jesse boot was yeah my mom thinks she’s related to Jesse boot so my family are from sort of south or north Nottinghamshire background as well

I don’t think people realize that boots is a great sort of East Midland success story huge success story and um I quite enjoyed working there I was working with a mate of mine and he and I would do shift work and it was really weird uh we were putting the the tapes the

Realtoreal tapes of the payroll and the order books in the The Hub of the it system for for boots of then very oldfashioned actually but um we earned quite decent amount of money and I saved it up and the plan was to go to Latin America right never quite made it

For lots of reasons so ended up uh working on a campsite in France uh then going uh cycling with my then girlfriend D de ranasa in Germany and um then on inter rail with another mate so travel around Europe basically Cosmopolitan very Cosmopolitan just having fun just

Having fun um and then you get to University so when does politics pop up and and also what was University like was was it a big deal did did you feel you’d arrived in a new universe well initially and this may surprise you I felt a bit intimidated

Did you and there were two reasons one completely my own fault um I hadn’t studied economics at a level um and I hadn’t done my pre-reading so I got up and learning economics from sort of nothing to degree level in a week which not very clever really um so took me a

Little while to get my head R economics but eventually think I did um so that was a problem I felt really challenged by by the subject initially and the other thing was thing about Oxford you do get some people who’ve been to rather more prestigious uh private schools than

Mine great school what it was but you know you know the more yes of course public schools and um they were very confident to the man of born super confident and that I found that a bit intimidating but I soon got over it and I’ve got lots of mates and and had a

Good time but you were confident in so many ways but it’s a different sort of thing isn’t it I can’t remember who it was on the Tory benches who described it as a public school Swagger as if that was something desirable that needs to be taught to children from grammar school

Or or or or or state school well I had a negative reaction to all that yes I’m sure so um you know some people wanted to go to the Oxford Union the debating S I didn’t want that at all did you not even though you’d enjoyed debating at

School no I just I took one look at some of the folk there no no disrespect I’m nothing them as individuals but it wasn’t for me I actually I’d read a book during my year of called seeing green by Jonathan poret oh of course and that was

Actually quite a semar moment in my own political thinking really put the environment right to the top of my agenda and when I went around fresh as Fair uh in my first week I joined something called the student ecology group okay and um that was my sort of

Political action and I my first bit of spin was renaming the group to Green action okay and we had term much better name yeah is a better name uh and I got involved in you know campaigning against potholes campaigning about recycling International campaigns got involved in anti- aarte

Campaign uh so so I it’s a dreadful phrase but I can’t think of a better one so go driven politics rather than for a lot of students ego-driven politics or or you know going to the Oxford Union because you’re desperate to be pres there’s a lot of inter Nissan Warfare

That goes on isn’t there and tactics and trying to persuade people to vote for you whereas you’re already focusing on things that you felt would improve the world yeah I mean I I wasn’t thinking of Korean politics not at all what were you think if I’d met you in your first

Second year at Oxford I said what do you want to be when we leave what would you have said I was more of the mind of working in developing countries were you really yeah so my um probably one of the people I should mention was a cousin of

Mine called Peter Peter Lon and Peter did lots of things he ended up in uh working for Mari stopes at wh EU doing uh essentially Primary Care in very many poor countries mainly aimed at female uh and reproductive primary care and female education and he was concerned about

Tackling poverty and also doing doing that in a way which then helped the environment so he was involved in a lot of environmental projects save the tiger one of the was Project he was involved in and he was hugely influential in my life and that’s probably why I read

Seeing green um and so yeah he was hugely in he changed the way I thought about politics and it meant probably that I was more goal focused and it meant that when I was thinking about my future I sort of wanted to copy him right and I wanted to go and work in

Development countries I was really conscious that you know uh bloke from uh UK what does he know about development my skill was probably going to be economics yes and I wanted to go and study agricultural economics after graduating yeah and I got a place at y college kend but I didn’t get a

Grant so you couldn’t go so I didn’t go and uh quite brutal yeah one of the things I I I thought about it should I keep going and um essentially after uh graduating spent some time working with my girlfriend at the time then went to look after my grandmother cuz she’d

Broken her hip and she was living in new and stayed with her for three months as I started to work out what I was going to do and I start applying for a range of jobs uh I appli for to friends of the earth didn’t get it I applied to uh oxf

County Council and their social services department to be a junior researcher on nothing and didn’t get it uh and ended up applying to the social liberal Democrats to be their Palm Tre economics researcher okay and you did get it and I got it much to my surprise cuz I wasn’t

Member of the party that there was there not a little tickle for MI6 around this time as well oh yeah I’d also applied the civil service right and I did had you do a test exam then you do uh selection board and I I passed those and

Um I got this letter um out of the blue saying there are some posts uh in the Civil Service that are not open to competition right and we’d like you to apply oh and so and they wanted to know your great aunts inside leg measurement

All that sort of stuff so I send that off and I got invited for an interview uh at I think it was Colton Gardens and it was bizarre it was this Massif room and this guy was at the other end and there was a table in the middle and he

Spent the first hour quizzing me and they said I know I want to tell you about why you’re here oh but before before I do you had to sign the official Secrets act good Lord so you’re what 22 Yeah gosh and uh you can’t tell me anym

About this can you well they then told you what being being a spy would be like uh and they said look you got to think about whether you want to proceed with this because we need to know and I decided by this time I’d actually started working for the liberal

Democrats right yes and so it was a choice liberal Democrats or MI6 gosh and um I it sounds weird doesn’t it it does a bit and you know uh some people had gone down the James Bond route I decided to go down the Patty ashown route well there’s there similarities isn’t there

Between those two Alan be originally and then and then pad ashown and when did you become a liberal or a liberal Democrat when when did because you mentioned you weren’t a member of the party I we should add because you’re too modest to do so that your early problems with economics were quickly

Overcome you graduated with a first class degree which is a very big deal in in 1988 so when did you feel your sort of ideology as it were firming well when I applied for the job um I knew I wasn’t against them yeah um and I hadn’t really been won over by labor

Because labor doesn’t seem to me frankly radical enough to change change the system let’s let’s because that will surprise people listening won’t it because there is fairly or unfairly a perception of the liberal Democrats as being between two stools where whereas in fact in many ways you you see

Yourself you see your party as being more robust more committed to change than I we’re a center left party first of all we believe in Progressive politics uh but the thing about that I’ve always sort struggled with is I don’t think they really want to fundamentally change the political

System uh you know they’re prepared to wait around get into power for a bit have power then lose it and then wait to get back in and I think our political system is failing our country in a very very profound way uh yes I can talk about

Electoral reform and uh and PR of course I can and that’s big to the reform agenda but another big thing for me is pushing power out of white Haw we’re in the one of the most centralized countries in the world this is should be part key part of our political debate

But it’s not so much power is held right in whiteall and by ministers and that means we’re not a pluralist economy a plist society it means that local communities are get what they’re given are not able to say this is this is what we want to do with our lives and our

Town our village our city um and so I really want to reform that push power down yes I want electoral form uh and I think unless you get some profound changes like that you won’t get a government uh that’s truly accountable to Parliament truly accountable to the people um because there’s too many

Layers well because they can get away with it under the first part of the post system when power is so centralized essentially and this was Lord helam back in the 1970s he talked about elective dictatorship because once the election’s over if you’ve got a one that’s it as we

Saw in 2019 uh and there’s no room for debate or Challenge and I don’t think that’s good for for politics and therefore good for making our country run better and run more fairly and yet your experience of Coalition was not exactly happy was it and Coalition is

The ultimate upshot of the kind of electoral reform that you’re talking about well it would been a lot happier if we’d had electoral reform already yes right because I think we could have uh you know shown You’ have had more leverage more leverage uh and uh but you

Know listen I got into politics by fighting and beating conservatives and in the Coalition frankly I was trying to fight them every day and I think in many areas we were really successful uh and I give you the long list of successes uh uh and I that those would not have

Happened if liberal Democrats hadn’t said right we’re going to we’re going to take our responsibility we’re going to try and change the system from inside and of course there were failures uh but there were a lot of successes um you know the stuff we did on things like um

Mental health care which we began to change the debate a long way to go but we we did work on that on the most disadvantage children the policies we did like the pupil premum really helped Renewable Power that would not have happened uh we wouldn’t become the world leader in Renewable Power same-sex

Marriage a whole range of things that happened because liberal Democrats were there and yet you’re you’re the last man standing really from from ministerial positions liberal Democrat ministers in in in the coalition government and well aliser car Michael was Secretary State and and yet you I well I’m sure you’ve

Answered this question before but I haven’t seen it if you’d been leader in 2010 would you have gone into Coalition with the Tories really interesting question uh it was difficult because of the numbers um during the many debates I and Patty ashtown argued had lots of during the

Five days debates within the liberal Democrats I am Patty ashtown argued for us to talk to labor yeah um and um we thought that probably they would give us a better deal we’d be a to put more of our policies in place but when we talked to labor they weren’t interested in

Getting rid of ID cars they weren’t interested in our policy on uh the third Runway heo and so you know we um it turned out to be a dead end so they made the decision for you in a way they didn’t want to do a deal but to be

Honest what was good about that is that uh Nick managed to do a coalition agreement which was far from perfect but it had 70% of our Manifesto in and meant we were able to do all the achievements that I’ve been talking about so this is pragmatism in practice I think you have

To be practical in in in in in politics um you know the key thing for me was making sure in government we fought the Tores really hard and you know they when I was secret state of energy and climate change they tried to stop the renewable Revolution and we were because we had

Some power we were able to make sure we did become the world leader in offshore wind and yet there was tension between you and Nick C I think over the question well you you’ve spoken about his determination to portray Coalition as a Force for good whereas you I think lent

More towards wanting people to know how hard you were fighting the Tories you’ve already mentioned in this conversation that that beating Tories is what is is a defining totem of your entire political career there were there was tension there you you coming from two different places I think on that specifically well

I understood what he was trying to do right yeah and um I think it’s really important that people realize that Coalition can work uh it’s never perfect because there’s lots of compromises and difficult decisions I understand what he was trying to do but um because I had so

Many problems with some of the conservative policies uh and they’re even worse now um I wanted to make sure that people saw us as a very different party and recognize that we were not comfortable in the Coalition with because I was never comfortable with no clearly and and uh you clearly now it

Wasn’t that clear at the time was it well um I I like to think that uh what I did in Coalition showed that I was willing to take on the Tories really hard um and I think if you go through the Press cuttings you’ll see me being

Very critical of of Tory ministers at the time um what I said after the Coalition was this that if you’re in the middle of the road you better wear high visibility and you know I I felt that what we needed to do and what I want to

Do as as party leader is show that we are very different uh from all the other parties um and I think the liberal Democrat genda whether it’s Patty Ashton’s gritty Community politics which first attracted me whether it’s the internationalism of the party whether it’s you know our uh our commitment to

To social justice uh to the environment whether it’s our big political reforms I don’t see elsewhere they make us a very distinctive liberal Democrat Party and yet the average voter may not know that that’s a frustration surely the the the the sort of the lack of the loud Haler

That the media gives you the yeah it can be frustrating um and even more frustrating because we we’re now treated by Parliament and parts of the media as the fourth parties got fewer MPS in the S SMP and that that’s meant the loud haer is even smaller because that affects the arithmetic

And like yeah exactly um but that that not withstanding I think we’ve managed where we’re strong to get our voice heard so I’m really proud of the fact that we’ve had four palmy byelection victories which nobody expected they were in uh true blue territory but we

Won them in ches mamam when the toyss were 40% in the pinion polls we beat uh Boris Johnson’s on we when went and won North shopshire which the Tories of hell for 200 years we won in East Devon overturning the largest majority ever overturned at a uh palmy by elction and

Then of course in in Somerset summon andum so those election Victory shows that the message that we’re taking to the voters which is particularly on the Health Service and Care yes also on cost of living that is resonating and then when people ask us about position on the

Environment to like that too uh so I think so when you can get there when you can get on when we can get there in our sort of community campaigning it an eight and it’s one of the reasons when I’m looking forward to the next election yes that I’m um I’m increasingly

Optimistic are you cuz the numbers aren’t great are they uh well the numbers I see are really good are they um so what numbers do you see well the canvas numbers the numbers in the seats that we can win so I’ve mentioned the Parliamentary by elections but I could

Mention the council elections which went very well for been really really good and I go to the seats where we’re the challenges to the conservatives because there’s a large parts of the country I’ve called it the blue wall it’s increasing the Southwest too there’s other parts of the country where the fight

In a two in a first part of the post system is just between the liberal Democrats and the conservatives and indeed labor has said in some of its internal letters that they’re re realizing that a lot of those seats are not uh Battlegrounds for labor right and

So people are beginning to realize in places from Wimbledon to to Winchester uh to chelham to I could give you a long long list if they want to beat the conservatives they vote liberal Democrat and then then we get to know our great candidates uh they think hey that wouldn’t that

Person be a great MP and under first part of the post that’s how Li Democrats succeed by by targeting areas yes uh by making it clear that we’re the challenges to the incumbent this case the conservatives and by having great candidates who are real local Champions do you do you have conversations with

The labor party about pacts do you have nothing at all no Ian do you want to no um and for this reason to be seats head where the Tory stays in power because the liberal vote plus the labor vote um would be greater but it’s split that’s

Just true well let me reflect on that uh something called tactical voting yes now my first engagement tactical voting was in 1987 when it worked for you well well 19877 forgive me yes but I’m saying I go back a long way voting and and I I campaigned for

Tactical voting 87 which was an anti-conservative thing and it was relative uccessful in Oxford actually uh um Andrew Smith won in Oxford East for example for labor um and in 1997 when I got elected by just a majority of 56 votes after three recounts that was to

Do with tactical voting and uh 97 2001 were two elections where tactical voting definitely made a difference and it really hit the conservatives yes and I think this coming election you’re going to see a lot of that as well uh and well there’s probably more heft behind it now

Than ever before Carol vman and and and some of her colleagues are really pushing on it and it seems to be people seem to be understanding it in a way that they haven’t in previous elections I think people are seeing it almost as strategic voting right uh and strategically they they want the

Conservatives out they want Center left parties to be in charge and they’re working out for themselves and I think that’s the other key thing you have to let voters work it out for themselves they’re not like chess pieces right so some people are going to vote for the Li

Democrats they would never vote for labor okay yes of course and you know if they thought that this was some deal which it absolutely isn’t they go well hold on a minute um we don’t like that we want a liberal Democrat and so I don’t believe in deals never have I

Don’t believe in pcts what I do believe is giving people and voters the information so they can make a strategic Choice an informed choice and you know whether it’s Carol vman or others I think they’re trying to do that and yet if you do end up holding if if if the numbers

Narrow as election day approaches and you end up holding the balance of power in the way that Nick CLE did in 2010 there’s only one way you could jump well uh let’s be clear I have ruled out anything with the conserves completely uh and I’m very happy to confirm that

And no that I’ll do that many more times for the election but um beyond that I think I want to take uh let the day after the election take care of itself I have a task and that is to make sure my party puts over its messages on the

Health Service on on care cost of living on the environment and beats as many conservative MPS as we possibly can that is my top task and when I go out uh and knock on doors as I do not just in my own consy but across the country you

Know people want to know uh so what do you stand for what are your what are your policy priorities and that’s what we’re going to keep focusing in on and Care is is at the top of the list um and and and now we sort of come full circle

On the personal life don’t we because you you you cared for your mother as we’ve discussed when you were a young boy and now you care for for your son John who who has I think it’s an undiagnosed neurological condition but it meant that he was nonverbal for a long time he

Needs a lot of looking after yeah he does I I’m interested in the the decision to keep with the support of your your your wife Emily um to keep moving up the of Politics as as as John’s condition became clearer and the responsibilities that it placed on you became heavier

Many people perhaps would have dialed down MH the political ambition or the career or or or the or the climb up the ladder what you you pressed on it’s yeah well I mean there’s lots of things in those decisions uh but it’s a decision by Emily and myself and we thought about

It um and the thing is Emily and I met in the party we met at a liberal Democrat housing policy working group so romantic yeah so romantic a lot of people say you should get out a bit more uh so so so we and she’s still for

Parliament four times yes she’s now a liberal Democrat counselor we share a passion for the liberal values that I’ve talked about and therefore um we have talked about what I should do she was the first to say run again in 2017 right um uh I decided not to run for the

Leadership then uh because I wanted her to run for Council in 2018 okay so it’s a partnership and we take those decisions together and I’m not going to say it’s always easy um and certainly caring for John is challenging but um I think like all parents you you knuckle

Down and you do what’s best for your children and we get support from my family um and uh we we make it work you just get very time efficient and uh you probably sleep a little less yes time efficient is an interesting thing you you must almost be a your brain must be

A sort of organic spread spread sheet sometimes between the two of you at least well we have to plan our Diaries quite carefully cuz John’s taught at home and has a Cara yeah I mean initially we wanted him to go to special school he went to two special schools

But he was nonverbal and we we passionately believed he could be verbal and then we when he got and taught from home uh with professional teachers coming in um within a term they got him saying words and he said Daddy for the first time was that his first word no no he

Have said mummy before right so let’s be clear like most kids mommy came first but he hadn’t really said much more he said Daddy when he was nine and then he started saying a quite a few more words and now he’ll say sentences I mean sometimes sentences don’t mean very much sometimes they’re

Repetitive uh sometimes they’re nonsense but quite often now there are full sentences which are appropriate for the setting and uh totally meaningful and his words are much clearer and when whether it’s his communication or his Mobility what is our our aim our aim is to make him as independent as he can

Possibly be and you know I talk about toilet Independence can he get himself to the toilet or not for his dignity and so he’s not reliant on another person and I talk about his ability to be able to communicate so when I’m not there which is you know my room one one who’s

Going to look after him who’s going to care for him like I mean I do would he be able to tell someone like his sister or another relative if he’s not being cared for properly right so um you know my top task with John is to give him the

Tools and it it it’s taking a long time but we’re making a lot of progress for some brilliant brilliant teachers and therapists and I um and I couldn’t be more grateful to them though I have to say the most important person in John’s life uh the the one who’s done the most

Is my wife who is unbelievable it it sounds like a very happy family yeah I think so uh we we I love but you’re you’re quite a happy man and with your track record no one could forgive you if you could blame you if you weren’t um

Yeah you know um I am motivated by the values that sustain me um I’ve got always had a loving family I that’s what I want to stress yes I have had some bement it’s been clear we talked about it and a few challenges got a challenge

My wife has Ms you know and that’s hit her Mobility too so there are more challenges but if you uh have a loving family loving relationships if you’ve got the support friends and family it’s amazing what you can get through and the people who I worry about in society the

Most vulnerable people those who are isolated without family without friends and um that that’s really tough for them you you you there is no earthly way that you can separate the personal from the political for Ed Davey is there they’re absolutely they’re not even intertwined it’s the same thing really your your

Your politics is your personal experience and your personal experiences are your politics I think um I I think that’s probably right I mean others can judge proba better than I can but you know my passion for the environment came from my wonderful cousin and then and reading uh my passion for sorting out

The health serviceing care comes from my life and um I guess my passion for liberalism about empowering every individual to be the best they can you know is reflecting how I feel about my son and you know when I Define liberalism it is about giving everyone

The best chance to be to maximize their true potential while holding the already powerful to account you big government big multinationals whoever is exercising power Regulators you know they need to know that they may have power but they better represent Ordinary People they better be accountable to us uh for you

Know what they do right and what they do wrong and that’s only the only way that you can empower the individual to community um by making sure they’re they’re stronger and the already strong know they’re being watched properly we we normally talk particularly well no not just with politicians whoever is

Sitting where you’re sitting now normally am I pops up quite a lot but we’re at the end of this interview now and we’ve not mentioned ambition at all for reasons that I think we’ll we’ll we’ll make a sort of intuitive sense to to to people who who’ve listened to it

But I wonder what ambition is now at this stage um what what does success look like in in the next general election it looks like power doesn’t it well first of all it looks like many more liberal Democrat MPS of course uh and that’s the way for us to first of

All get rid of this conservative government and secondly to exercise power in whatever we end up exercising after the next election for our priorities you know we’ll talk very much the election about health about getting need to get more GPS so people don’t have to go into hospital about improving care so people

Can come out Hospital more quickly I want to really reform our health system in profound ways that help people I want to help people on the economy and I want those messages to come through and not just at the election I want people to see that if they elect liberal Democrat

MPS in Parliament we’ll fight for the things we talk about the election and we’ll deliver in in however way we can and and when you come to the end of your political journey and you look back on it what do you hope you will be able to

Point to post Coalition what are you thinking will Define the Ed Davy years for the what are you hoping will Define the Ed Davy years for the liberal Democrat Party well I hope not only we’ll be more far more successful yeah but I think we’ll get over

That we care about the things that people care about you see I think people lost trust in politics yes I think if you talk to people they think you’re all the same we’ve lost trust and what I’ve been trying to do as leader is make sure

That we listen to people and listen to their top concerns and think about them work out how we can address them and that’s what we are going to do at the election and Beyond going to continue fighting for people’s concerns and yes we’ll talk about the things that that uh

Remotivate liberal Democrats and try and get those too because we think they will deliver on things like health and things like the cost of living I think profound change in our political system will help us deliver on health I think profound change in our political system will help

Us deliver on climate change I think it will help us rebuild our relationship with our European friends uh and neighbors uh if you don’t have that profound political change I think what we’ve seen in our country where the right dominate uh they control so much and they are polluting our democracy unless

We get that profound political change the pendam will swing back to the right it’ll just get worse and worse and worse actually because you’ve said that I’ll squeeze in one more question on the end how how significant is the is the strangle hold that the rightwing has on

The British media even while they’re constantly telling us that it’s the other way around how how do you as a center left politician um how do you account for the the the lack of um a plurality voices really in the media the fact that everything a newspaper establishment can can crush a

Center left politician in a way that no rightwing politician will ever have to endure yeah I think it’s deeply unattractive and I think people uh need to be Expos to that and explain it we we saw in uh you know how the news of the world abused its power in a one most

Horrendous ways and it’s paid a price I think we need to defend Independent Media uh we need to defend the BBC the BBC has a massive attack from the right uh and we need to ensure that those sorts of forces in our media get the support they

Deserve and Davey thank you thank you very Much