Hello and welcome to rock and roll politics the podcast. I do a one-man show called rock and roll politics and

quite a few people have told me do a weekly podcast so I am, not least because the podcast gives you a bit of space.

I love them.

I download so many of them.

And each of them in a way is deeply satisfying because people have room to breathe.

And I think whenever I see friends at the BBC, always say give us more room to breathe things are so

complicated at the moment and fairness to them sometimes it's very difficult because they've got so much

to cover but um we can do what we want on these podcasts so um each week I'll take a topic and look at it

I'm very interested in exploring terms like the centre ground, the hard left, and kind of terms that are used so often and are so ubiquitous, but used I think quite casually. Sometimes it'll just be me, sometimes I'll interview someone. I'm thrilled that Andrew Adonis is a guest on this opening podcast. We'll hear from him very shortly.

And in fact, I'm going to reflect a bit on Brexit today, but I won't always, I promise you.

Brexit is historic, of epic significance and I think a genuinely compelling drama. It's not boring. People say,

oh no, not Brexit again. I know what they mean, but it is a drama of such compelling proportions

because no one knows how it's going to end like the best thrillers. It's a box set of many

episodes, but no one from Theresa May downwards knows the ending. And it could take many different

forms. I'm going to talk briefly before we hear from Andrew Adonis about one element of Brexit. And I'm going to talk briefly before we hear from Andrew Adonis about one element of Brexit.

And I'm going to begin with this opening podcast with a counterintuitive thought

that May is not behaving as a Prime Minister very differently from any other British Prime

Minister since we joined Europe.

I was thinking of this, actually. I was on the Excellent Sunday Politics Programme on BBC One,

and one of the other panellists said, why can't May show strong leadership like Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher in relation to Europe?

And I was reminded that even they with their

huge majorities and apparently well-developed and different views on Europe, often equivocated

...