UK general election 2024: Sunak facing record number of Tory MPs standing down

Sir Ed Davey did not rule out a coalition with Labour as he insisted he would not “waste time” speculating about it, Amy Gibbons reports.

The Lib Dem leader said there is “no way” his party would prop up a minority Tory government, but was far less committal when asked if he would strike a power-sharing deal with Sir Keir Starmer, insisting he did not want to get “distracted” from the task at hand.

He told The Telegraph: “To be honest, all these questions, I think, are in danger of taking people for granted… we’re not going to do that.

“We’re going to focus laserbeam-like… on the issues for the campaign. So we’ll be focused on the health service… the economy, the environment, and talking about what we need to transform our political system… We’re not going to waste time thinking about anything else.”

Put to him that it didn’t sound like he was ruling out a coalition with Labour, he said: “No, I’m focusing on the issues that voters are raising with me.

“One thing I’ve noticed in my time in politics and watching other Liberal Democrat leaders in the past, is they have sometimes thought about what happens after an election, and if you do that, you get distracted. And you’ve got to be far more focused on the job in hand, and that’s what we’re going to do.”