Hello and welcome to another election special episode of Politics Theory Other, a podcast from Tribune magazine.

My guest today is James Medway. We spoke about whether the Conservative manifesto and its

limited spending promises will prevent the Tories taking Labour seats in the Midlands, the north of

England and Wales. We also spoke about the usefulness of opinion polling, why the Liberal Democrats are

once again failing to disrupt the two-party duopoly, and we also discussed the role of the media

in the election and whether the UK is becoming a managed democracy. Today's show is brought to you

by PTO supporters on Patreon and also by Verso Books, who have a great

many left-wing titles that might be of interest to listeners. One that you might like to check out

is One Man's Terrorist, a Political History of the IRA by Daniel Finn. In the book, Daniel Finn

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The book demonstrates the ever-present consequences of Irish partition,

the violence that followed,

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This is a history of the troubles and the radical politics of republicanism.

Visit versobooks.com for more information.

James Medway is a former advisor to the shadow chancellor John McDonnell and former chief

economist at the New Economics Foundation. His writing has appeared in Tribune magazine,

The Guardian, The New Statesman, and Navarra Media, amongst

other venues. So James, you've recently been arguing that for the Tories to win in their

target seats in the so-called Red Wall, parts of the eastern west midlands, Wales and the

north-west, they need to make a really substantial economic offer that would make a clear break with austerity.

And instead we've seen this very policy-like manifesto that offers pretty meager increases in spending.

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