this is bbc news, the headlines. questions surround the future of the uk's high—speed hs2 rail line. speaking to the bbc, senior cabinet minister grant shapps says it would be "crazy" not to review the project — amid rising costs and inflation. it's understood a decision on the future of the link between birmingham and manchester will be made this week. the fate of ethnic armenians in disputed nagorno—karabakh is hanging in the balance as their leaders say most will likely leave their historic homeland now controlled by azerbaijan. armenia has urged an international mission to monitor the rights of civilians in the enclave. and nasa awaits the return of a space capsule carrying dust samples from what's been described as the most dangerous rock in the solar system. scientists hope the samples could reveal new information

about the formation of the planets. now on bbc news — political thinking with nick robinson. hello. what makes someone want to be a political leader? what persuades them to give so much of their time up, time that they could be spending with family and friends? and above all, what makes them carry on even after they've been rejected by the electorate? questions for my guest this week on political thinking, a conversation with rather than a newsy interrogation of someone who shaped our political thinking about what has shaped theirs. ed davey could be a full time carer. his teenage son is severely disabled, unable to walk and barely able to talk.

sir ed is the last of the lib dem ministers who served in david cameron's tory—led coalition. a few years ago, the electorate kicked him out of the house of commons, perhaps in protest. now, though, he is back as an mp and as leader of his party and he's seeking to persuade voters at the next election that he can kick out the very people he once served with in government. ed davey, welcome to political thinking. great to be back. we talked at length about your life last time you were on. iwonder, though, given the electorate gave you the chance to get your life back, what on earth persuaded you, given the troubles you have at home, given the responsibilities you have to, rush back into the house of commons and even take on the leadership role? well, there's two sort of parts of that. coming back to parliament was a no brainer, honestly.

my wife is a very active lib dem. we took the decision together and there was so much that she wants to do that i want to do in politics left. pretty obvious that i was rather upset by the result of the brexit referendum. but way beyond that, lots of things on the environment, on the nhs that i care passionately about and i wanted to have another go at, as it were. i felt i learnt a lot in government and i had more to give. but it's a funny thing. i mean, you've been a cabinet minister. nobody thought you, least of all you, i think, probably thought you in your life would ever be a cabinet minister as a liberal democrat. you'd got a knighthood, you could earn a decent amount of money, money you want to use on yourfamily, having been energy and climate change secretary, weren't there moments where you thought, i've done it, i don't need to go back to this? well, i think if the election hadn't come in 2017, maybe if it would have gone the full term to 2020, who knows

what would have happened? but in 2017, i still had definitely the hunger and i certainly have it now. i mean, where my family quite rightly impacted my decision—making was not running for the leadership in 2017. so i'd come back, was re—adjusting, and my family needed me at home and i needed also, by the way, to give my wife a chance. she stood for election at kingston council and won in 2018 and we already planned that. so it was her turn? so it was her turn. she'd stood for parliament four times and hadn't won. i was determined that she had a go. and i'm really proud of what she's achieving in my borough. your life in many ways has been defined by being a carer. you cared for your dying mum when you were at school, you were at her bedside as we discussed last time you were on, in your school uniform when she died. and then you had a very disabled

son, john, he's 15 now. yeah. but you've had something of a breakthrough with him in recent times? yeah, well, he said daddy for the first time when he was nine and that was a moment. and we've been teaching him at home for a few years. it wasn't our first choice but it turned out it's best for him. and that creates its own dynamics. but he was nonverbal before we started teaching him at home, and now he can verbalise quite a few things and express himself. was daddy the first word? no, i think mummy came first. he's a diplomat. yes. i think a few other things came before daddy, actually. i think ipad came in before daddy. biscuit! so... but that was important for me and, and since then he, he's able to say many more things. i mean, he has quite some profound learning difficulties so you can't have a conversation like we're having now. but for independence, what you're trying to do is maximise his independence. and whether it's, you know,

i call toilet independence or being able to express himself and communicate even in basic ways, it's so important for his quality of life. and clearly, as a father, you could communicate non—verbally, you've been doing that for years, but nevertheless hearing that word, daddy, that must have been quite something. i can't begin to describe that moment. i mean, you know, there are many moments as a parent, aren't they? i mean, when you first have your first—born in yourarms, i mean, wow, there's nothing to beat that. but then as they go up, i mean, my daughter, you know, she captivates me. and it's one of the greatest pleasures in life. and you've decided to talk about this, you put this, if you like, at the centre of your political leadership. you're not the only person to have talked about caring, david cameron talked very passionately about the way he cared for his young son. and people were cynical about that. but i saw it first—hand. i remember getting a phone call from the former

prime minister saying, i can't do that interview today, and he was driving to a hospital at that time. have you found that there's a kinship, a bond with other people who've been through this sort of thing? yeah, i think so. and, you know, during the pandemic, to come back to that, when you saw constituents going through your trauma, you know, people you knew losing loved ones, you got a bond there and it took me back to losing my mum, to be honest, the trauma of that and how that's impacted on my life and my politics. and i think, you know, david cameron's discussions on this were something i could certainly relate to. and i think what it suggests is there's a change in how we do this in public life. i mean, when i was first elected, i think politics was a bit more machismo and people didn't talk about what was going on in their lives. and i think in politics and indeed outside politics, you see more people talking about what's going on. people talk about mental health far more.

i said you'd put it at the centre of politics. you've got policies of care, of course you have politicians, though, often call carers heroes, unsung heroes. isn't the brutal truth that we depend on them to do it for free, that as a country we want care on the cheap? we haven't worked out how on earth we would pay for it if we tried to pay for it. absolutely. i mean, if you look at how people have analysed the value of care that is given for free, we'd increase our national income by 50%. and guess what? most of that is done by women. there's the big gender inequality issue here as well, as well as the socialjustice issue. i mean, we're very fortunate in ourfamily to be able to afford things and manage. but what's always struck me is those families who have little money, those families where the person they're caring for was working and the partner has had to give up work, the impact on the family income because of a tragedy

and because of the need for them to provide that family care is ginormous. so if we can fix care, i think we can have a more equal society in many different ways. so give us one example. this is not a news interview, it's not a policy interview, but one example of how you could, in your words, fix care. well, if you talk to carers, there are two or three things that come up all the time. the first is respite care and that's sort of...what it means is breaks for carers and that can either be away from the home or it can be someone coming into the home to allow the carer to go and go to the pub, go and meet some friends, go to bingo, go shopping orjust something to give them a break. so breaks from the caring is really important because it helps the carer's mental health and physical health and helps them survive. and then the finance — i mean, carer�*s allowance is pitiful. and, you know, during the pandemic

it was noticeable — the government increased things like universal credit by £20 a week. they didn't increase carer's allowance at all despite the massive impact on carers. that brings us to the sort of pitch you're going to be making at your party conference coming up. you've effectively got a year before a general election, everyone assumes. and in my introduction, i think i tried to sum up what's your problem, which is, and it's your problem specifically, here is sir ed davey, given a knighthood as a result of serving in a tory—led goverment, that imposed austerity, saying, i really hate those tories, you know, we're going to kick them out. is that credible? i see it an opportunity because i can actually explain to people how i fought conservatives all my life and i got elected in a seat that had always been conservative. the conservatives are the people i fight in my constituency election after election and during the coalition, you know what? i was fighting conservatives every day of that.

you know, people like george osborne didn't want me to invest in renewables and create the renewable revolution that we had and didn't want liberal democrats to pursue that, that green agenda. but we fought him. and you know what? we won. didn't look like that, did it? it looked like a love—in. from the minute nick clegg and david cameron came up and in a sense, wasn't that the whole point? wasn't this the dream that you, as liberal democrats, had — grown—up partnership, politics, parties working together like they do in large parts of europe and other parts of the world? why do you feel the need now to apologise for it? i'm not apologising. i'm just saying that behind the scenes we were fighting very hard. but let me tell you why i think it looked smoother from the outside, and that was because, and you've alluded to it, we wanted to show that coalitions could work. so we do believe, and you're quite right, we think britain would be a much stronger country, a much healthier country, a much more successful country

if political parties sort of had to work together. it's one of the reasons we believe in electoral reform. so we wanted to show that parties could be grown—up and mature and find a way forward by working together. but it didn't mean we didn't have huge disagreements. but, you know, the truth is, you've got to make government work. if you have that responsibility, you've got to be grown—up. and we did. but i'm so proud, and i think what democrats showed is that give us a chance, give us that chance, and we can implement some of our amazing ideas. but if the coalition, if austerity is one reason you've struggled a bit and you're in such a weaker position compared with where you were just a few years ago, arguably brexit�*s the other one, isn't it? do you accept that for some voters, certainly not all, that slogan that your predecessor had, "bullocks to brexit" sounded like bullocks to you. we don't care what you think,

we don't care what you voted for, we know best. well, ithink, you know, those are passionate days, weren't they? and people wanted to be clear about where you stood on the issue. and no—one can can suggest we were sitting on the fence on the issue, with good anglo—saxon terminology. what i would say, though, is when i think about that now and think about it going forward, is we do have to try and approach those sorts of issues in a way which doesn't increase the divisions in politics and tries to bring people together and... is that why you're playing it down? well, we remain very strongly pro—european and always will be. we're a liberal party, we're internationalists, we believe in working with others for our mutual benefit, for the national interest. but, you know, we've got to face the facts — we are where we are, and the relationship that the current government will bequeath the next parliament with our european colleagues

is a dreadful one. and people don't trust us, don't trust britain, i mean. you could argue, when you say we are where we are, some remainers, passionate remainers say, i tell you where we are, we're in a brexit that doesn't work where brexit isn't popular any more, 56% of people in one poll said they thought it was wrong, and we'd like the lib dems to come out and fight, get into the single market. but they sort of want to talk about anything else. well, i'm very happy to talk about it. and i do actually regularly, far more than people think. let's be clear — we voted against the deal. we thought it was a dreadful deal. and unlike labour and some other parties, we said so at the time and we weren't prepared to sign up to it. and i think the real negatives of brexit have proven that we were right about the negatives of that deal but to try to repair the damage, you've got to start by rebuilding the relationships. there'll be plenty of people listening who no doubt are thinking,

this is sensible and it's grown—up and, respectfully, i think there'll be other people say it's all a bit boring, isn't it? you know, what we want is some excitement. we want some hope, we want some promise. and they think and they argue some of these people that the reason they're you're still, you know, in the low tens elevens twelves in the opinion polls, way lower than you used to be. he said, it's just a bit dull. there's nothing that you're making the political weather on. are they wrong? well, i think they are wrong. and i would first of all point to our successes, i mean, for byelection victories in tory strongholds. ——four byelection victories in tory strongholds. and then we've had fantastic local elections across the whole of the country on the same day. so what i would say to those people who want me to make their pulse race a little bit more quickly isjudge us by our success at beating conservatives. and that is quite some record already.

you know what your friends say? they say you've given the game away, what you've realised is that it's no use being very popular in a first past the post system. you can spread votes all over the country, you don't win any seats at all, so that you're fighting a series of byelection campaigns which allow you to sound a bit green here, a bit less green there, to be the none of the above policy, which when you firstjoined the lib dems, everybody used to tease you about. well, first of all, our voting system does mean you have 650 elections on the same day, and that's called a general election. we don't have pr and it's important if you're going to win for liberal democrat values and our policies, that you win as many seats and many way seats under our system are more important than votes. that's interesting. therefore, you have to say, it is a difficult thing, i think, to say to your supporters, look, trust me, i think i know the way to get us more mps, but i'm not bothered whether i get 18 or 20 or 22.

obviously, you want the biggest number you can get. that's not the measure of success. i think the measure of success is how many mps we get in the next election. 100%, i couldn't be clearer and more certain that that's the measure of success, but i do want to win arguments. i'm loving being on your show because you can actually have a proper discussion because at the moment, one thing i think the conservatives want to do is to persuade people that no—one can do any better, it's all dreadful, governments can't really sort things out, so you may as well have the devil you know. well, they're wrong. politicians and parties and governments can improve our country. 0ur country's never been so badly governed. and what i want to say at the next general election, whether it's on nhs and care, whether it's on the cost of living and how people are coping, whether it's on the environment, things like sewage, climate change, we have an agenda which can really provide a positive forward way.

you see, you corrected yourself when you said sewage because what the people i know in the liberal democrat say listen carefully to ed davey, he used to in his 2019 manifesto, talk about tackling the climate emergency. now in the what they call the pre—manifesto, the document that will form the basis of your next manifesto, you say a flourishing environment with fair access to nature for all. it's all about making things sound a bit nicer, a bit reassuring, because isn't your problem this — your activists are all left wing and the vote is you're trying to get a largely ex tories because they're the ones who will give you the seats you need, and therefore you need to you need to hush down all the things that your activists really care about? no, no. well, let me talk about both those issues, sewage and climate. very happy to. i mean, on the nature side of things, i think the conservatives got this completely wrong. i think it's patriotic to care about our local environment, our rivers, you know, the green and pleasant land that is england,

that is the united kingdom. and the conservatives seemed to want to say, "don't worry about that." and what. .. you're hearing from rishi sunak today, you know, the conservative rejection of some of the net zero policies, which a few minutes ago they were advocating is essentially handing the future to china. you know, if you want britain to do what it's traditionally done brilliantly with our fantastic scientists and innovators and entrepreneurs, we should be ahead of the game. and, you know, ithink liberal democrats show showed out the way in government. we became the world leader in offshore wind. why can't we be the world leaders in other technologies of the future? i'll tell you what the conservatives say to that. we're not going to save the planet by bankrupting the british people. that's what they say. well, the conservatives are bankrupting the british people at the moment, that's the problem. liberal democrats showed in government that if you invest in green technologies like offshore wind, like renewables, you can cut the price of energy.

and renewable power, which we championed, is now the cheapest form of electricity. so the conservatives are pretending that everything that tackles climate change is more expensive. they're just factually wrong. now, the arguments i suspect we'll be having over the next year is about what can be afforded, given the economic dire straits that we face, not for one year but arguably for ten or 15 now. can the triple lock be afforded? can we really afford to say that elderly people, some of whom are very poor, but many of whom are perfectly prosperous, will get much bigger increases than people who are being paid to do a job? well, what's interesting are there are many countries that are much poorer than the uk who have a state pension that's a lot larger than the uk's, both in absolute terms and a share of average earnings.

so i think the question has to be put back to those who want to get rid of the triple lock. i'm really proud that it was liberal democrats who brought in the triple lock for the state pension. my great friend steve webb, britain's best ever pensions minister. and we did it for several reasons. first reason, that after the conservatives pegged the pension to prices, not earnings, in 1980, we had 30 years of the value of the state pension declining and that put britain at the bottom of the league looking after our retired people. that's just wrong. and the triple lock is gradually beginning to turn that, but it's got some way to go. and here's another political point which i would put to you and to your listeners. the people who benefit most from a decent state pension are women. because when you look at private pensions, the best private pensions go back 70 years and they are primarily owned by men.

so what people are saying, if they want to get rid of the triple lock is not only do they think that britain shouldn't pay our retired people as much as some countries that are poorer, but they want women who are retired to be amongst the poorest in our country. i reject that. interesting you mentioned women because another issue that you confront, particularly as a liberal, as someone proud of fighting for equality, is whether there is a clash between women's rights and trans rights, not always, but in certain situations. did the argument about a male rapist being sent to a women's prison give you pause for thought about how trans rights should be treated in this country? well, first of all, i think my overall position on the general topic is quite a simple one. the vast majority of people, they believe their gender is the same as their biological sex at birth but there's a small number of people who don't.

and i think it's over 20 years now the law has recognised that. and what's been odd about this debate in recent times is it's sort of ignoring what the law's been there for 20 years. and ijust hope that the debate can be taken in a rather more calm and sensitive way. now, when you and i first talked, i asked you a rather grand question about liberalism, and you said you were still an optimist about liberalism. in the face of what we're seeing in the united states, the possible return of donald trump, in the face of very high votes for parties of the far right in germany, in france, in the netherlands, in italy and elsewhere, are you still that confident that liberalism is the answer? 0h, liberalism is the answer. but you're absolutely right to say that it's under attack and indeed, national populism, authoritarianism,

you could have mentioned quite a few other countries actually to prove the point you were trying to make, that it's on the rise. and i think it is a challenge to liberals and indeed liberals in all political parties, actually, liberals in other parties, notjust the liberal democrats, it's a challenge to say, well, how do we express our values? because i think the vast majority of people actually have liberal values. how do we express them better? how do you win that argument better? and so one of the ways i'm doing that is by showing that liberalism, which will be based on freedom, but also on rationality, on evidence—based policy, thought through, well—structured, mature, grown—up, but it also expresses emotion, because what i what i see in the national populists and the authoritarianism, they are appealing to emotion in people.

and it's absolutely right that people have those emotions and respond to it. but if liberals don't appeal to the emotions that are in us, then we will fail and we will lose. give us an example, how's ed davey — calm, reasonable, in inverted commas, a former minister in a conservative—led government that imposed austerity — where's the passion? what makes you angry? who are you angry with? care. care is the passion. you know, i see a conservative government that doesn't care. it doesn't care about environment. it doesn't really care about the people who are less well—off. it doesn't really care about our nhs. it doesn't care about our pensioners. it doesn't care about so much. it just cares about their vested interests and their people. and they pretend, and this is what really makes me cross, they pretend they do care. and i've seen through them and i think a lot of people are seeing through them. and i'm going to be the voice of carers and i'm going to show that

through that agenda, whether it's in caring directly or the nhs or elsewhere, we are the party that cares. ed davey, leader of the liberal democrats, thank you forjoining me on political thinking. thank you. ed davey may be passionate at his party conference this week, but he's got to be passionate, having looked at the market research about what the voters he wants to win over want to hear. so if you're hoping he's going to lead the battle to get back into the eu orfor trans rights or for the rights of asylum seekers, i suspect you're going to be disappointed. those aren't where the votes are, as far as he's concerned, and he couldn't have been more explicit. what matters is the number of mps he wins, not the number of votes he gathers, which are spread out evenly across the country. thanks for watching.

hello. the week ahead looks very unsettled with heavy rain and gale—force winds at times. so far today, we've seen some showery outbreaks of rain. fairly fragmented, as you can see from earlier rainfall but low pressure still driving the weather at the moment. plenty of isobars on the charts and plenty of wet weather to come for the remainder of the afternoon. but not for all of us. central and southern parts of england and wales will continue to see cloud break—up and sunshine come through. heavy rain moving steadily north by the end of the afternoon, sitting across the scottish borders and northern ireland in particular. but with the sunshine we could see temperatures topping out at 20 or 21. the early evening will see another heavier pulse of rain pushing in from the south—west,

across wales, into the lake district and into western scotland. weather warnings are in force. gusts of wind accompanying the heaviest rain. 0n exposed coasts, 50—60 mph. pretty miserable conditions to close out sunday. that system will ease away. showers continue into the far north—west. plenty of cloud around and still the wind direction coming from the south—west. a mild night, overnight lows of 12—15. we start tomorrow on a quieter note. the winds will ease, still blustery but nowhere near as strong. sunny spells for many, a few scattered showers particularly through scotland and temperatures will respond. we could see temperatures peaking at 22, way above where we should have them at this time of year. more rain to come in the forecast, as you can see, on tuesday. it's western areas that will bear the brunt of the rain. the potential for some localised flooding as we go through the week ahead.

that rain will tend to focus its story across much of scotland and north—west england. central and southern england and wales dry and still pleasantly warm. as we move through the middle part of the week, we not only see yet more wet weather but also the risk of some severe gales. we need to keep an eye on this position of low pressure. it might be that bit further north or further south but one thing is for certain — the middle part of the week looks pretty unsettled, with heavy rain and strong winds. better by friday.

live from london, this is bbc news. uncertainty surrounds the future of the uk's high speed hs2 rail line — the defence secretary says it would be �*crazy�* not to review the project amid rising costs. ethnic armenian leaders say thousands are without food or shelter and may be forced to flee. the bbc has a special report from the disputed nagorno—karabakh region. and nasa awaits the return of a spacecraft carrying asteroid dust that could reveal new details about how the planets were formed. hello, i'm rajini vaidyanathan. it's been described as the new high—speed railway that will form the backbone of britain's transport network.

but there are now questions over the future of the hs2 project