The

The Hello and welcome to rock and roll politics, the weekly podcast with me, Steve Richards.

Thank you so much for tuning in, wherever you are, around the UK and indeed the rest of the

world. And as ever, I think we've got even more to cram in than usual today. So this is what we're

going to do in our time together, if it's okay with all of you. I've got a few reflections,

not just one thing, but they are interconnected.

It begins with my troubled train journey to Newcastle at the weekend. It's all interconnects.

But then the main theme is going to be looking at the significance of the exodus of relatively young Tory MPs

who've announced their standing down beyond the cliche, oh, you know, shows this government is running

out of energy and things, people are leaving, or I'm all that's obvious, but I think something more interesting.

And it's a thing that also connects to Matt Hancock in the jungle.

So, yeah, there's going to be a journey from my train to Newcastle and back and Matt Hancock in the jungle. And it will all flow seamlessly.

And then we return to your questions, which are brilliant and connect also. There's that great

phrase in E.M. Foster novel, everything connects. And there's a big focus in your

questions on what the heck we do about the state of British public services, the sense of nothing

working at the moment. That very neatly connects to my Newcastle experience in terms of the

travel. Time in Newcastle was brilliant.

But on to that in a minute.

And there's some other brilliant themes as well.

The questions are fantastic as ever.

And indeed, this kind of focus on public services was triggered partly by our French correspondent

Dominica talking about the local services in her commune area.

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