The

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

Thanks so much for tuning in wherever you are in the UK and indeed around the world.

And as ever, we have got a lot to cram in in our time together. If it's okay with you, what I thought

I would do in my reflections is look at the challenges and opportunities for labour. We are living through

a cost of living crisis. The term now is almost like a cliche. You know, each day you

awake and you hear the headline, cost of living. Oh, we're living through a cost of living crisis.

And if you are in

opposition, that provides opportunities and some risks. So I'll be looking at that very shortly.

We've got an amazing range of questions from all of you. Why do I say all of you? Of course it's not all of you.

I've plucked a few out from, if it was all of you, would be here for weeks. But we're going to have a few

questions, which again, range widely but reflect urgently topical themes. Before all of that, just a quick notice, for those of you who

are on the brand new Patreon version of rock and roll politics, it being the start of another month,

a bonus podcast should have arrived for you, this time looking at the 1992 election.

And I might even refer to the 1992 election in my thoughts today about labour, inflation and cost of living,

because it is an election which came to define so much.

And one of the most consequential in modern times for reasons I go on to in the reflections on 1992. It was also a dark drama,

1992. It was conducted in a very cold early spring. It was April 9th, 1992 when the election was

held, an unexpected result with all kinds of twists and turns. And of course, one of the running

themes, it was a personal tragedy for Neil Kinnock, who fought that a second election he had fought and lost.

And the seeds were sown for the path towards new labour. We have the seeds being sewn for the

divisions within the Tory party over Europe.

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