Sir Ed Davey: We felt we had a duty to talk about caring for our disabled son
It’s hard for politicians to cut through. It’s even harder when you are leading the fourth largest party in parliament with only 11 MPs.
How do you insert yourself into a conversation that’s happening largely between the Conservatives and Labour, with a sprinkling of Reform’s Nigel Farage in the mix?
Well, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has done it two ways.
The first through endless silly stunts – be it repeatedly falling off a paddleboard on Lake Windermere or riding a giant waterslide in his swimming trunks in Somerset.
But the second, and far more profound, way to reach voters has been to open up about his own childhood, caring for his dying mother, and now, as a father himself, raising a disabled son.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
The decision to make a highly personal election broadcast, which showed Sir Ed at home with his 16-year old son John, as well as footage of him at his childhood home in Nottingham talking about his mother dying of breast cancer when he was 15, has, in part, been to highlight the world of carers.
But it has also been to try to show a side of this political leader the electorate don’t know.
Since the short film was released three weeks weeks ago, it has been viewed over 6.4 million times on the leader’s X feed. That is what you call cut through.
In an interview with Sky News at the Daveys’ family home in Kingston, Sir Ed and his wife Emily Gasson explained that revealing the caring responsibilities they both shared at home for John, who has an undiagnosed neurological condition and needs round-the-clock care, was a “gradual thing”.
“We started talking about it quite gently in my first year or so of leadership [and] we got this reaction from people saying, ‘thank you for talking about it’, and we sort of felt we had a duty to,” explained Sir Ed Davey, as he sat holding Emily’s hand in their back garden.
“I’ve talked more about my whole life as a carer, because I lost my father when I was four. So my mum was widowed, aged 36 with three boys under 10. Then she got ill.
“When I was nine, she told us she had breast cancer, and my little brother and I nursed her until she died when I was 15, so I was a young carer.
“And then we had our first child John and we realised after about a year that he was going to be severely disabled. So, I have had a caring role in different ways in my life. And it’s quite clear millions of others do too.”
Read more:
A simple guide to all the party’s policies
Why do you need ID to vote?
The party leader continued: “Carers take a huge burden off the NHS but get very little support and they’re not recognised. And it [has] almost become part of our political thinking – to talk about our experience and hopefully touch people’s lives, but also make it quite a serious point.
“People need the care and support when they’re caring, but also if they do, that can be good for the rest of society.”
Emily, who is also a local Lib Dem councillor, said she doesn’t use social media, but wasn’t surprised that the film of Sir Ed at home with John went viral.
“I think I can understand why people are being attracted by it, because I’m sure… so many people have had a similar experience or a member of their family [have had] a similar experience, so you can understand why it touches people in so many different ways,” she said.
“But as I say, we’re not unique in any way, shape or form… this story or what happens to people when they have [this experience] is never told. It’s never spoken about. It’s, you know, people just get on with it.
“A lot of the thing about being a carer is it’s absolutely exhausting. It’s physically exhausting. It’s emotionally exhausting. By the end of the day, you’re finished, you know, 9pm you’re absolutely finished. So your voice is not going to be heard because you’re just exhausted.”
Having told their story, Sir Ed put health and care at the heart of the Lib Dems’ manifesto launch two weeks ago, with an £8bn package of services in England.
Plans included giving everyone the right to see a GP within seven days, as well as free personal care for older or disabled people at home.
Sir Ed said the proposals would be funded by reversing tax cuts for banks, and closing tax loopholes exploited by the wealthiest individuals, which he claimed would raise £7.2bn.
He told me this could be achieved by investing £1bn in HMRC processes – although independent experts have been less sure, with the IFS think tank saying there was “uncertainty” around whether more resource into tax collectors would really squeeze out much more.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
What is in the Lib Dem manifesto?
With the Lib Dems eyeing a return to being the third largest party in parliament once more – and the latest MRP polling putting them on 48 seats – Sir Ed said he wanted to champion carers and social care in the next parliament, and wanted to see a cross-party commission to tackle the social care issue once and for all.
“This is a big issue, a long term issue,” he said. “[We need] some proper work where people come around the table and say, ‘we have to do this – there are consequences, but we’re all going to sign up to it’.
“And I think if you don’t do that, you won’t get the political commitment, won’t get consensus, and you won’t bring people with you.”
As for his campaign, the Lib Dem leader has come under some criticism for all the stunts he’s pulled off, with questions around whether in the quest for more exposure, he was throwing away credibility.
Sir Ed roundly rejected that, telling me that people were “fed up with politicians”.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
The Lib Dems’ wet and wild campaign week
He added: “I think [the public] are disillusioned. Politicians haven’t reached out to people. And I think by showing you’re a normal person, whether it’s the stunts and having fun, as well as the serious message and the stuff about being a carer, I think it shows I get it.”
Another question mark over the Lib Dems is their record in government in the coalition years, as the party who propped up the Conservatives and went along with austerity cuts.
Sir Ed faced difficult questions over it from a live audience at the BBC’s Question Time event last week.
Asked it he regretted going into coalition, he demurred and talked about what he thought the Lib Dems achieved in government – be it progress on renewable energy or same sex marriage.
But he also acknowledged the experience broke the bond of trust between his party and the public, which has taken years to rebuild.
In 2010, Nick Clegg’s Lib Dems had 57 MPs. In the 2019 election, the party had its worst performance yet and returned just 8 MPs (they got to 11 by the end of the parliament via by-elections).
Sir Ed has faced a grilling over his role in the coalition government with the Conservatives in 2010. Pic: PA
“You know, I lost my seat in 2015,” said Sir Ed. “When I became leader, I said to the party, we need to wake up, we need to wake up and smell the coffee. People had lost trust in us and I got that.
“And so we did two things: we are not going to promise something in this election we can’t deliver and we realised we needed to rebuild trust and listen to people. What are their problems?
“And so our whole manifesto has been built around what people are telling us.”
After a very difficult decade, Sir Ed is hopeful for this election as the party targets 85 seats up and down the country where the Lib Dems are second behind the Conservatives – with 40 of those across the Blue Wall in the South East and a further 25 in the South West of England.
He said: “In the Home Counties and the West Country, we’re finding – and this has never happened before in my lifetime – people who have always voted Conservative saying they’re going to vote Liberal Democrat, because they can’t bring themselves to vote Conservative.
“That is different, and that’s why I think we can do very well at this election.”
Net migration has fallen sharply in the UK, the latest official figures show.
The data, published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), estimates that net migration has halved from 860,000 in the year ending December 2023 to 431,000 in the year ending December 2024.
The drop is the largest ever recorded for a 12-month period, and marks the most significant calendar-year fall in net migration since the early stages of the pandemic.
Politics latest: Net migration to the UK estimated to have halved
Meanwhile, long-term immigration fell below one million for the first time in around three years.
That was estimated to be 948,000 in the year ending December 2024, down by almost a third from 1,326,000 in the previous 12 months and below a million for the first time since the 12 months to March 2022.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘We need to reduce immigration’
Emigration rose by around 11% to an estimated 517,000 for the year to December, up from 466,000 in the previous year.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper hailed a 300,000 drop in net migration since the start of the Labour government last July as “important and welcome”.
She said: “These figures show a big increase in returns of failed asylum seekers and foreign national offenders, record levels of illegal working penalties, and the asylum backlog and hotel use coming down.”
Net migration hit a record high of 906,000 in June 2023, and stood at 728,000 in the year to June 2024, shortly before Labour took over from the previous Conservative government.
But former home secretary James Cleverly said while Labour “will try to claim credit” for the falling numbers, the changes are a result of policies enacted while he was in government.
What caused this fall in net migration?
The sharp fall reported on Thursday is thought to be driven by a decrease in immigration from non-European Union nationals.
The ONS also noted plummeting numbers of people coming to work and study in the UK.
Additionally, these estimates follow restrictions introduced under the Conservatives in early 2024 on people eligible to travel to the UK on work or study visas.
Mary Gregory, the director of population statistics at the ONS, said the fall is “driven by falling numbers of people coming to work and study, particularly student dependants”.
She said: “There has also been an increase in emigration over the 12 months to December 2024, especially people leaving who originally came on study visas once pandemic travel restrictions to the UK were eased.”
Read more from Sky News:
Chemical castration for sex offenders
Judge blocks Chagos Islands deal
The new estimates come less than a fortnight after Sir Keir Starmer set out a series of measures aimed at reducing further the number of people moving long term to the UK.
The prime minister, who said the country risks becoming an “island of strangers” without better integration, said he wanted net migration to have fallen “significantly” by the next general election – but refused to set a target number.
Sir Keir’s plan includes reforming work and study visas and requiring a higher level of English across all immigration routes, and is expected to reduce the number of people coming to the UK by up to 100,000 per year.
However, the Conservatives have claimed credit for the fall.
Former home secretary James Cleverly said while Labour “will try to claim credit”, the changes are a result of policies enacted while he was in government.
He said: “This drop is because of the visa rule changes that I put in place. Labour will try to claim credit for these figures but they criticised me at the time, and have failed to fully implement the changes.”
The utter crass political mishandling of yesterday’s botched partial winter fuel U-turn could have profound consequences for Sir Keir Starmer.
And now, whether bad things flow from his obtuse but significant comments in the Commons chamber yesterday will depend, among other things, on the vagaries of the global economy and the riptides of the trade union movement.
Here is why:
At the point of the autumn budget last year – when Rachel Reeves spent more than signalled in the election campaign, funded by borrowing more than the markets expected and raising taxes that weren’t foreshadowed in the manifesto – those whose livelihood depends on forecasting the response of the debt markets had one question.
Politics latest: Starmer’s Chagos Island deal gets last-minute green light
They wanted to know: is that it? Is that the extent of the big spending splurges that the chancellor would perform?
Because, although there was a big unsignaled boost to spending, borrowing and taxing last November, the markets’ judgement was – more or less – that was fine provided she was able to hold the line at broadly this level of spending and borrowing and no more.
Clad in her cast iron armour, Ms Reeves insisted that was it. A “once a parliament” budget, she said, meaning no more substantial tax hikes.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Winter fuel payment U-turn approach in question
An upfront public spending boost, but then Tory levels of restraint in rises in the second half of the parliament. She would hold the line, she promised.
But the question still lingered: what would happen in a less benign political climate? The manifesto contained tough decisions, like the two-child spending cap which Labour MPs were required to endorse to stand and keep the whip.
Initially, actions like the suspension of the whip from the likes of John McDonnell for rebelling on spending signalled they were prepared to face down spending demands.
Yesterday’s botched partial U-turn has blown that narrative sky high.
No 10 and No 11 have crossed a rubicon. They have provided a precedent whereby they whip out the cheque book in the face of political pressure, even though we are years from a general election.
Not only did No 10 fold, but they evidently did so without any semblance of a plan of what they would actually do with winter fuel allowance or how much they would spend on mitigation, or how that would be funded.
Perhaps they had no plan because they too waited for the Institute for Fiscal Studies press release laying out the options. That’s how we work out what will probably happen – maybe that’s their trick too.
Read more:
Ex-PM suggests people on top rate of income tax should be excluded from winter fuel allowance
Net migration halves in UK
Now look at this morning’s Guardian. The excellent Pippa Crerar, the political editor wronged by a Number 10 denial of her winter fuel climbdown story last week, reports more welfare climbdowns on the card, including potentially a change or removal of the two-child cap. Others have said the same to me.
I make no moral judgment about the two-child cap, that’s not my job. Many Labour MPs find it abhorrent. But it performed a vital function in the manifesto: it was a signal to the markets that Labour can take and stick to the difficult fiscal decisions that the current state of the public finances demands.
The two-child cap was Ms Reeves’s pre-nuptial agreement with the buyers of UK government debt. She breaks that as a result of political pressure at her peril.
She may claim better economic news in recent days gives her wiggle room – today’s borrowing figures and the sheer level of global uncertainty (what would Israel bombing Iran do to petrol prices, for instance) suggest caution might be a worthwhile path.
Rachel Reeves resisted calls to lift the two-child benefit cap
Just this morning, Bloomberg is warning long-term bond yields are going up all over the world, including the UK.
The question now is where does the spine crumbling end?
Who knows now how much this government will recoil when there’s the next rebellion. Or when the unions up the pressure, as they surely will at some point before the next election.
Take just one example. Today, public sector pay awards have been flopping into our inboxes. GMB Union has begun balloting NHS and ambulance workers in England on this year’s 3.6% pay award.
How much will ministers be prepared to pay in the next 18 months to stop strikes breaking out?
We just don’t know. And more importantly, we don’t get a sense Ms Reeves does either.
After yesterday, levels of certainty about the course of government decision-making took a hit.
Will they end up being punished by the markets for this? Some believe they could. It seems we must return to watching the cost of government debt for the rest of this parliament.
David Sacks, US President Donald Trump’s top adviser on crypto and artificial intelligence, said the administration expects the stablecoin bill to clear the Senate with bipartisan backing.
“We have every expectation now that it’s going to pass,” Sacks told CNBC on May 21, following a key procedural vote that saw 15 Democrats join Republicans to clear the filibuster threshold.
The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act is the most advanced federal effort yet to establish a legal framework for dollar-pegged digital assets.
Sacks said the bill could trigger “trillions of dollars” in demand for US Treasurys by unlocking stablecoin growth under clear rules.
“We already have over $200 billion in stablecoins — it’s just unregulated,” he added. “If we provide legal clarity, we create enormous demand for Treasurys practically overnight.”
Related: GENIUS Act ‘legitimizes’ stablecoins for global institutional adoption
Stablecoin bill moves forward despite Trump controversy
The stablecoin bill’s progress comes despite controversy surrounding the Trump family’s crypto dealings. Critics have raised concerns that the administration benefits from the legislation, given its ties to World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm backed by Trump family members that recently launched a stablecoin, USD1.
The token is backed by US Treasurys and dollar deposits and has received a $2 billion investment commitment from Abu Dhabi’s MGX fund via Binance.
Sacks, who disclosed the sale of $200 million in crypto-related holdings before joining the White House, declined to comment on whether the president or his family may financially gain from the bill’s passage.
Despite momentum, final passage is not guaranteed. Senator Josh Hawley has added a controversial provision to the bill that would cap credit card late fees, a move that could cost the legislation support from financial industry allies.
Related: Hong Kong passes stablecoin bill, set to open licensing by year-end
Banks panicking over yield-bearing stablecoins
In a May 21 post titled “The Empire Lobbies Back,” New York University professor Austin Campbell said the US banking industry is “panicking” over the rise of yield-bearing stablecoins, which threaten their profit model.
Campbell criticized the banking lobby for pressuring lawmakers to defend their interests and block competition from interest-paying stablecoins.
He argued that banks rely on fractional reserve practices to profit while offering low returns to depositors, and fear stablecoins may expose and disrupt that system.
As reported by Cointelegraph, the US Securities and Exchange Commission in February approved the first yield-bearing stablecoin security by Figure Markets.
According to a May 21 report from Pendle, yield-bearing stablecoins have soared to $11 billion in circulation since January 2024, representing 4.5% of the total stablecoin market.
Magazine: TradFi is building Ethereum L2s to tokenize trillions in RWAs: Inside story
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway