The Guardian view on Ed Davey's mission: build politics around care. If not, cruelty will define it
Did last week mark a sea change in British politics? For many, it did. The government's U-turn on winter fuel payments signalled a welcome retreat. But the deeper shift may lie in the terrain that ministers are now forced to fight on: cuts hitting disabled people and their families. In the Commons, Sir Ed Davey raised the case of Ginny, a carer for her husband with myotonic dystrophy. He described the human burden of responsibility, exhaustion and love. Under the government's planned cuts, he warned, her family stands to lose £12,000 a year. The prime minister replied with managerial platitudes. Sir Ed, by contrast, spoke of duty, dignity and the very real consequences of policy.
The Liberal Democrat leader isn't trading in ideology; he's drawing a line based on human decency. Caring has been a constant theme of his life, even more than politics. When he was a teenager, Sir Ed spent three years looking after his mother who died of bone cancer. Later he helped care for the grandmother who brought him up. Every morning at 6am, Sir Ed wakes up his severely disabled 17-year-old son, John, then cleans his teeth, bathes him and gives him his morning massage. In his new book, Why I Care, he frames this both an act of love and a foundational political insight.
The Lib Dem leader wants to rewrite British politics – not with the language of crisis, but that of care. In a Westminster hooked on 'tough choices' and resistant to compassion in policy, he offers something rare – moral clarity rooted in lived experience. He understands that care is not a luxury to be considered after the economy is 'fixed'. It is, he says, the core economy. His new book is both memoir and manifesto, containing a call to abandon parliamentary introspection and recentre politics around mutual support.
Critics might call it earnest. Cynics may spy sentiment in search of power. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, says Lib Dems are just 'good at fixing church roofs'. But Sir Ed leans in. His paddle‑boarding, Zumba-thrusting 2024 election campaign delivered his party's best result in a century, winning 72 seats – 60 from the Conservatives. The latest YouGov polling has his party ahead of the Tories and snapping at Labour's heels.
Rooted in real life and years helping constituents through a broken system, his authority on care is hard-won. The UK has 6 million unpaid carers – 1.7 million work more than 50 hours a week. The NHS would collapse without them. Yet many carers are met not with help, but hurdles – denied adequate respite and treated as invisible. This paper's investigation into the scandal over carer's allowance payments revealed a brutal bureaucracy punishing vulnerable people. It's not just neglectful. It's insulting.
Sir Ed's proposal – to assign every family in need a named carer and social worker – is modest, sensible and overdue. He's also had enough of the care reviews. Who can blame him? Since 1997, there have been 25 commissions, inquiries and white papers. Now ministers want Louise Casey to take three more years for a review into adult social care. He says it's enough to make you cry. Sir Ed's not point-scoring, just asking how family, community and state can equitably share the load. And urging the government to get on with it – as quietly and steadily as the carers it routinely ignores.
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