The hell I share with David Cameron

My daughter suffered two seizures the other night. One was shortly after midnight, the other a couple of hours later. Having been away on business the previous night, it was my turn to get up to comfort her, to check that the fits were not life-threatening and, afterwards, to settle her back to sleep. Five hours later the alarm went off and, as my teenage son stomped into the shower, I popped back into her bedroom to check that she was still asleep — and still alive.

This was a typical night in our house, and it was followed by a typical day of attempting to balance work and family while caring for a severely disabled child and engaging in a ceaseless battle with the bureaucracy of our public services. My wife endures a daily torrent of telephone calls and conversations with doctors, nurses, social workers, teachers and therapists, plus the whole allied panoply of respite carers and council staff.

This is the reality of life as the parent of a severely disabled child. It is a reality I entered 12 years ago with the birth of a child suffering complex epilepsy that has left her blind, unable to walk or talk and in need of 24-hour care. It has, inevitably, had an impact on my family, my friendships, my lifestyle — and on my politics. My perceptions have been challenged, my views changed.

It is a reality that David Cameron, the emerging favourite for the Tory leadership, entered nearly four years ago with the birth of his son Ivan. As I know from a series of conversations with him since then, it has had a similarly profound impact on his life and on his politics. It helps explain his evolution from that cut-out-and-keep young Thatcherite turk who stood in the shadow of Norman Lamont on Black Wednesday to a more complex, compassionate figure who has gained an understanding of the failures of our public services and of his party in the most brutal possible way.