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Newscast is on the face of it, a podcast about the news.

But it's also perhaps the world's most athletic podcast,

we have BBC correspondents dashing in and out,

ready to give us a deeper understanding of the biggest stories of the day.

Thankfully, we let them catch their breath before we actually start recording the podcast.

Listen to Newscast every day on BBC Sounds.

My guest this week has spoken movingly about caring for his very disabled son, John,

and before that for his mother who died of cancer when he was just 15 years old.

Caring, says Sir Ed Davie, is the key to understanding who he is and what he believes.

As leader of the Liberal Democrats, he rescued his party from the hammering it took after sharing power with the Conservatives,

taking them in one election from just 11 MPs to 72. But now he faces a

major new challenge. New parties and new leaders who've gone from opinion polling zeros to heroes

in a matter of months. And I'm not just talking of Nigel Farage's reform. Zach Polanski's Greens are now breathing down the Liberal Democrats' necks.

Sir Ed, welcome back.

Thank you.

Great to be here.

It's actually the third time that you've been on this podcast, six years since we first spoke back in 2019.

And I asked you then something I want to ask you again.

What do you say to people who predict the death of this idea you believe in, the death of liberalism?

I think they're wrong.

I think liberalism is alive and kicking.

...