In the UK currently seven million people are carers. That is one in ten people and the figure is only rising as demographics change and people live longer with more disabilities and illnesses.
Three in five of us will be carers at one point or another in our lives.
That is why it is so important this week, Carers Week, that we understand and recognise the contribution carers make to society.
The BBC has recently produced some insight into why voter turnouts in Local Government elections is diminishing at an alarming rate.
At a time when national political awareness is at an all-time high (surely there isn't a single voter who hasn't heard of Brexit!), the trend for voting is local elections is at an alarming low.
In a wide-ranging set of essays on Britain's future, Vince Cable casts his party not at the centre of the tranditional left-right axis, but as the leading proponent of a values-based politics, which is open, inclusive and outward-looking, not closed or narrow-minded.
He examines how liberals should respond to the 'age of identity' and proposes an ambitious program of radical reform.
