Ed Davey is heading to Edinburgh on Saturday 12th August to take part in the For the Many Podcast with Iain Dale and former Labour Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. Tickets, which cost £17, are selling fast, so don’t miss your chance by snapping them up here.

I hope he knows what he is letting himself in for as these shows can be quite the wild ride with a generous helping of smut and comedy alongside the politics. There’s usually a bit of snog, marry, avoid and in the most recent live show, outgoing Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price was asked which politicians he would like to see on Naked Attraction. There are some questions to which “none” is the only acceptable answer. To be fair, the live shows are usually less lurid than the weekly episodes, the audience providing a reminder that someone else is actually listening.

I reckon our Ed will handle himself pretty well as long as he realises that there are few boundaries. He is, I think, much better at these sorts of informal events than at the big set piece speeches.

For the Many has been going since 2017 and, if my calculations are correct, will hit its 400th episode during its Edinburgh run. I started listening to it by accident just before Christmas last year and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

Since, I’ve gone back to listen to some of the episodes covering Brexit, Covid and the ongoing Tory psychodrama. As you would expect, Lib Dems don’t usually get the credit we deserve in their analysis so I generally fall asleep during the serious bits and wake up in fits of rib-breaking laughter at some of the outrageous filth they come out with.

Iain Dale is also hosting a series of All Talk events that week with guests including Penny Mordaunt, Harriet Harman, Wes Streeting, Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf and Peter Tatchell.  I went to a few of his Edinburgh shows in 2019 and found them entertaining, funny and illuminating. He usually gets headlines from what people come out with on his shows, but they are definitely more friendly chat than Paxmanesque grilling. That’s fair enough. Who is going to drag their backside to Edinburgh in the middle of the Summer to subject themselves to a public evisceration?  Dale arguably gets more out of them by being inquisitive rather than inquisitorial.

Between them, the two shows will cover the key strands of the SNP meltdown. Defeated leadership candidate Kate Forbes who absolutely isn’t biding her time while Humza Yousaf tries to sort out the poisoned chalice he has inherited and former Westminster leader Ian Blackford will be interviewed over the same weekend as Ed.

I already have tickets to see star of the moment Penny Mordaunt, Harriet Harman, Ed and the John Curtice/Brian Taylor double header.  It’s the first time in four years I’ll have gone anywhere near the Festival and I’m really looking forward to it.

It is worth a trip to Edinburgh to enjoy the vast, random, often surreal creativity on show during the month of August. I mean where else can you come across people dressed up as genitals walking down the street? If you’re going to be there, come along and support Ed.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings