Leader Interviews - Sir Ed Davey of the Liberal Democrats | Election 2024 

--And maybe I'm biased because I also really like the way Ed Davey came across in this 🤣

Thought he sounded like a breath of fresh air for a moment then checked his voting history; constantly voted against raising tax on high earners to fund NHS, voted against higher taxes on 150k+ earners, voted against raising capitals gains tax, voted against stricter fracking regulations voted for academy schools, voted 14 times to reduce corporation tax, voted 13 times for reductions in welfare benefits voted 5 times against paying higher benefits voted for bedroom tax

What his bikes?

​@@FanaticjamesCoalition government. Judge him on his manifesto now.

@@Fanaticjames taxes for higher earners are too high anyway, and I can say that as someone planning to vote labour or lib dem.... I'm on 6 figures in london, with student debt thus negative equity for the time being, I've calculated I'm paying 58% marginal tax rate including student tax and national insurance. And that's not including council tax. It's literally impossible to become wealthy when you keep way less than half of what you made. No one will become rich over their lifetime, unless they inherit from parents, at this level of taxation. It needs to come down, this isn't sustainable.

@@TopazDr Even if you were earning 200k a year you wouldn't be keeping only 42%...

Do you really think so? This is the same Ed Davey who was minister in charge when the postmasters asked for help, and he told them to sling their hook, could have and should have done more but didn`t . Might be ok as a father but as a political representative, a complete and utter waste of breathe.

@@alexlothian8293 I remember looking into that and j found out that he actually helped then, wasn't really in charge, and it was worse when others were in charge. It's kinda just a fake smear campaign thing but there's some videos on that

Yep I donated to them first time I have ever donated to any party.

There would have to be a lot of tactical voting for that to happen. The Tory vote is very concentrated in certain constituencies. I don't think 60 will do it, 75 as a minimum might be enough. They're only campaigning in 100 so that's a huge ask. It's possible but there would have to be a culture of tactical voting including Lib Dems voting Labour in seats they can't win. Unlikely.

I think families caring for families is the best way, they should support and encourage more family to do so, it will ease the burden on the future carw sector. And theres no one who can care for you than your own family

Except of course zero reflection on the coalition, if the guy could just say the fixed term parliament act was a mistake I'd feel a lot more comfortable with then, but seems they learned nothing

@@chrisdickens4268 Yet despite that act being implemented we had the 2017 and 2019 elections, so there was always a way to overule it.

​@@oliverleonard7730 look up how it works and make up your own mind. Or better yet look at what they did in the 5 years they had.... Swallowed economic lies (credit card maxed out anyone?) and support ever increasing inequality, naive and incompetent if your being kind

That’s why the Lib Dems want a mental health professional in every school.

In 2010 every, EVERY, party was advocating public spending cuts. That was also the Labour platform (although with hindsight I wish we'd kept Gordon Brown, definitely would have been better under him). There absolutely was a mandate for public service cuts in 2010. Obviously austerity was a huge mistake. The US under Obama did the opposite and went on a spending spree to push their economy through, now on the other side their economy is booming, tax revenues growing.

​@@Red1Green2Blue3 very revisionist, keynesianism was still alive and well in 2010!

Brown had a reasonable plan of 4 years minor austerity, loans at rock bottom prices, VAT 10%. Brown was not charismatic but was capable.

So committing themselves to 5 year parliaments that they couldn't break was clever and didn't tie their hands at all? Lib Dem supporters may have forgiven them but they're few and far between, it's the legions of tactical voters they betrayed in 2010 that worry the same errors would happen again... You'll note how Sir Ed basically said "this was the best anyone would get, we did nothing wrong" the next three elections says the electorate disagrees!

The argument that the LDs 'propped up' the Conservatives is also deeply flawed for one particularly glaring reason - there was no alternative. If the LDs had held the government to ransom over X or Y we would almost certainly have seen a series of events along the lines of i) early election ii) the Conservatives campaigning on the basis of being the 'grown ups in the room', the party 'willing to do what's necessary' to fix the country iii) enough idiots going out and voting Conservative to hand them a majority iv) unchecked Conservative rule at an earlier date than we, sadly, began to suffer it. Particularly so when it's those to the left who fail attacking the LDs and failing to grasp this, often the same types who refuse to accept that Corbyn wasn't generally popular, or to acknowledge that Labour have u-turned on countless manifesto pledges, and were the party to introduce, and then raise, tuition fees, I find it hard to take any of their views seriously.

​​@@_Stroda your very first sentence is wrong, there were many options from a coalition with another party to a supply and confidence agreement with the conservatives like the DUP did. Instead they guaranteed 5 years of support with the fixed term parliament act.... This is the glaring part that they never seem to reflect on which is why the "left" as you describe are uncomfortable trusting them

Didn’t the government of Sir John Major introduce tuition fees (conservatives) of £1000 in the 1990s. Blair raised it to £3000 (still affordable). Tory’s were advised to raise it to £4-6,000 with low interest repayment. They raised it to £9-12,000 during a financial crisis and tacked on what is now 10-12% interest rate then sold it cheap to private buyers and backed it by the state in case of default which is likely. It’s a worse cost drain then the state pension and debt should be forgiven.

​@@chrisdickens4268 A supply and confidence agreement would have been far worse. At least with the coalition they actually had a say.

Who intends to ignore the will of the majority These incompetent spendthrifts will drag us back into Euro slavery

That's how I feel too. I like Ed Davey much more than Keir Starmer, but I prefer the Labour Party to the Lib Dems. Since my local seat is very safe for Labour, I'm going to vote Green.

honest, 😅

So you're voting for the grammar nazis?

A Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition would have only been 315 seats so still 11 short of a majority.

​@@oliverleonard7730 Yes, 315 seats is not a majority however the Conservatives with Democratic Unionists with 315 seats would still have fewer seats than the 329 seats of Labour, Liberal Democrats, SNP, Green and SDLP, Plaid Cymru, Alliance combined although it would mean more work on various coalitions.

@@safirahmed That really would have been a coalition of chaos.

@@oliverleonard7730 The coalition may be described as chaotic but the outcomes and long term prospects would have been better for the UK without 14 years of Tory rule.

There are people still willing to vote for the Tories after the last 14 years. LibDems will be fine lol "There was a clear anti-austerity majority in the country" - FALSE. Even Labour were pro-austerity, they were also talking about billions of public spending cuts and asset sales.

Hang on, Brown also promised cuts from 2011 onwards in the form of ‘defecit reduction’. Everyone promised cuts - Labour wanted to try some stimulus stuff first, but after that, they also promised cuts. Truth is the Lib Dem’s were the handbrake on the Tories - you only have to look at the previous 9 years to see how truly egregious it has been without them.

Yes, i was hoping that he would be honest, he obviously regrets his coalition. He is just like the rest of them.

Where was the Anti Austerity majority when the Labour Manifesto contained £81billion in cuts

@@VesiustheBoneCruncher yeah that is a fair point about the Labour plans, that wasn’t the perception at the time and I don’t believe they would have been as bad as the tories and if the Libdems say they were holding the tories back surely they could have extracted a far higher price fromLabour

I don’t think you understand how the British political process works

The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey

No he put it into context. A simple yes or no answer would be weaponised. He stated that in a government where they were the minority partner they did put the brakes on what the Tories could do. It’s not his fault the country then voted for the Tories so they could decimate our services into oblivion.

Exactly

Fascists

@@prodlowd Careful, certain words can lose meaning when carelessly overused

What's your generation...

The Labour party does not have totally clean hands when it comes to sleeping with the enemy. Some local Labour parties on occasions "jump into bed" with the Tories at council level to form coalitions. Labour voters betrayed by their party.

Torys betrayed it and used lib Dems as a scapegoat.

Don’t know how old you are but the years under the Labour government weren’t great either. Uni tuition fees brought in. Focus on service sector, manufacturing in this country more or less wiped out. Little regulation on banks, the Labour Party loved the big banks. Until it all came crashing down. houses prices rising 20% year on year. Pricing first time buyers out, or landing them masses or debt for decades. Not to mention the Iraq war. The lib dems have apologised over and over about tuition fees, there is videos online with nick clegg apologising. Has Cameron apologised for the eu ref and the whole mess that followed no.

He probably does but chose to go for “these are the good things we did” rather than bad things

If they hadn’t entered coalition they would have been told even they didn’t think they were fit for power. They knew they’d take a kicking whatever they did, Ashdown explicitly outlined the problem after the extraordinary general meeting. They did what they could as the (very) junior partner in the coalition. the 2010-2015 government was nowhere near as bad as what we’ve had since, even Labour would have made cuts (2011, proposed deficit reduction). So, in short, both of the senior parties had committed to either austerity, or austerity light, the junior partner literally had to chose one to have a reason to even continue as a party, and show that mechanically, coalition works (which it did), and plumped for the party with the most seats, obviously, and a chance at electoral reform (although the Lib Dem’s bodged that with AV).

@@VesiustheBoneCruncher very well put. I don’t think AV was the Lib Dem’s preferred choice I think it was the conservatives would agree to.

Which party did you vote for in 2010?

The tories have been in power for 14 years not the Libdems, you’re blaming the wrong party. They got the tories to up the personal allowance, brought in free school meals for all ks1 school children, they reduced the tories austerity plans.

Fascists

@@prodlowd Careful, certain words can lose meaning when carelessly overused

@@jeffsimon9594 like Reform using "socialist" to describe Labour and Tories, when they aren't even social democrat