I meet Ed Davey at his house in his Kingston and Surbiton constituency, a sprawling Edwardian semi. In the hands of a banker or, for that matter, a regular politician, it would be full of black and white tiles and plantation blinds, but in the hands of the Daveys it looks like an 80s novel, full of elegant chaos, every surface covered in papers, cellos and vests.
The Liberal Democrat leader, 57, is unusually open and approachable, guileless; I start bombarding him with the kind of questions you’d ask a friend you hadn’t seen in 20 years. Why have you got a high chair, when your youngest is nine? How come you’ve got so many cars? Two of the cars are theirs, a little electric one and a mobility vehicle for their 15-year-old son, John, who’s disabled; one car is John’s carer’s, and she has a toddler, hence the high chair. One is John’s teacher’s – “he’s taught from home. We tried two special schools, but they didn’t work out. When we started home education, he was non-verbal. He’s now verbal. Which is brilliant,” he beams. We head out to the garden, where I congratulate him on the local election results.
