I'm gunning for Hunt and Gove seats at election, says Lib Dem leader

DAVEY EYES SCALPS OF EX-PARTNERS IN COALITION CABINET

- Rachael Burford, Nicholas Cecil

SIR ED DAVEY once rubbed shoulders with Jeremy Hunt around the Cabinet table. Now, the Liberal Democrat leader is determined to end the Chancellor’s Commons career.

Mr Hunt’s Surrey constituency is on the Liberal Democrats’ target list as the party seeks to scoop up “a lot of seats” in London’s commuter belt at the next election.

Former energy secretary Sir Ed, right, also wants to deliver the same fate to Michael Gove, another ex-Cabinet colleague — with the Coalition years long forgotten. He makes this crystal clear when asked if he is getting advice from Sir Nick Clegg, who led the party into power-sharing with the Tories, and now inhabits a very different world as social media giant Meta’s president of global affairs.

“I’m speaking to my own advisers,” Sir Ed tells the Standard in the first party leader interview of the political conference season. “Nick did a fantastic job for the party and had some really good ideas. But time has moved on.”