This is a Global Player original podcast.

Next week will be a big political week.

The budget, perhaps the biggest political moment of the year.

Much rest economically, perhaps much more rest politically for the futures of the Prime Minister

Kirstama and the Chancellor Rachel Reeves,

who perhaps incredibly feel as if they are hanging by the most slender of threads.

One man who has seen his share of budgets, including his own, come and go, is Lord Ken Clark.

Chancellor of the Exchequer for John Major in the 90s, Health Secretary, Education

Secretary for Margaret Thatcher in the 80s, Justice Secretary for David Cameron in the 2010s.

His was a political career spanning half a century, becoming an MP in 1970.

Today, he enjoys his perch in the Lords, but few can claim his political

longevity, nor now his experience of political history. As Reeves faces what could be a make-or-break

budget, we've come to Nottingham in the county that Clark represented in the commons for all those years

to speak to the man himself about the political moment in which we are in and all the many more

that he has lived through. Welcome to the newsagents.

The news agents. Lord Clark, Ken Clark,

thank you so much for inviting us into your home in Nottingham.

For people who are listening rather than watching,

you are smoking one of your vinegar cigars,

which you were just telling us about.

You didn't mind if I smoked.

I don't mind at all.

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