It is a truth universally acknowledged of party conferences that for all the speeches by wizened senior MPs, interesting ideas from think tank wonks and crazy interventions in obscure fringes, the people from whom one most needs to hear are the cabbies.

Whether it's being driven from the railway station to the overpriced conference hotel, taken to a restaurant on the edge of town or winding one's way home from a karaoke bar at 3am, taxi drivers will provide the viewpoint of the man on the street.

So, having rattled through the sun-kissed countryside between London Waterloo and Bournemouth, where the Lib Dems are holding their annual get-together, I exited the station and slid into the back of a yellow Volkswagen Passat.

In the eight minutes or so I was in his vehicle, this Algerian dad of five who has lived in the town for 20 years came out with some surprising – and some might say contradictory – views which should give our political leaders food for thought.

He supports Brexit.

He doesn't like the EU and particularly doesn't like Poland or Romania.

The EU would be fine if it was just Britain, France and Germany.

Theresa May was “great, a good woman” who was “very good for this country”.

The MPs who voted down her deal “should be ashamed of themselves, they are not doing their duty”.

Boris Johnson is “a racist, he is as bad as Nigel Farage or Donald Trump”.

Jeremy Corbyn is “the best, a great man because he backs Brexit”.

But what, I ask, if he doesn't take us out of the EU?

“That would be very bad, he must.”

And what of the Lib Dems, whose members will pour money into this resort over the next four days?

“Nick Clegg, he's gone now hasn't he?”

Yes, I say, some time ago now.

And “the old man, Vince, he's gone now too?”

He has indeed (the driver doesn't even touch on the two-year tenure of Tim Farron who came between Clegg and Cable).

“Who is in charge now?”

“Jo Swinson,” I say.

“Never heard of him,” replies the driver.

“She's a she,” I tell him.

“Oh, OK,” he says.

As the Lib Dems kick off this year's conference season, this one voter's views – and they are of course the views of one random individual – illustrate the problems at the heart of Brexit, the contradictory nature of some opinions and the impossibility of reconciling them all.

In a nutshell, these are the difficulties facing our party leaders as they grapple with how to plot a path out of the chaos.

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