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

Thank you for tuning in wherever you are.

And, yeah, we've got a lot to reflect on today, what with one thing and another.

If it's okay with all of you, I will offer a few thoughts on the mess the government has got into over winter fuel payments, a saga with so many

deep, deep lessons. Then we'll go to your brilliant questions, varying on a whole range

of great issues, actually. And before that, a couple of assembly notices. Please subscribe to

Patreon to keep this show on the road, so to speak.

And I'm enormously grateful if you do, but you get loads for it as well. It costs about the

price of a couple of coffees. And this month's bonus is the last show at the Edinburgh

Festival, where we tried to sum up everything and go out all knowing. That will be coming to you this week.

And you get the show early with our ads and so on. So a range of glorious privileges.

And also a reminder that the next live show is October the 7th at King's Place after the party conferences,

which have acquired a greater significance now, I think, in the light of question marks being

posed over the government's chosen narrative and whether they will need to recalibrate

during that party conference.

And then the Tory conference will be like, you know, one of those talent shows where the

leadership candidates all get 10 minutes to perform.

And people then give their verdicts in a way that happened.

It happened in 2005.

It was ridiculous and bizarre. And everyone there concluded that Cameron was going to be the great star. And in some very limited respects,

that happened. Anyway, so King Space will be reflecting on all the things going on. It's the first show, really, since the Labor government was set up. We had one, I think, a few days after the start of that government, but now we can delve really deep. There will be unreliable predictions, question time, and, of course, nice wine flowing in the bar.

So hope to see you there.

...