Hello, I'm Charlie Higson and I've written a book about our glorious monarchy, a tale packed with battles, scandals and the occasional beheading.

From Harold getting an arrow in the eye to Henry V, giving the French a good whacking, and of course Henry VIII, who made marriage a full-time occupation, all the way up to Charles III, who frankly seems rather well behaved compared

to the rest of them. It's called Willie Willie Harry Stee, with brilliant illustrations by

Vic Reeves. And it's out now.

The New Statesman.

Hello, I'm Tom McTagg and this is the New Statesman. Hello, I'm Tom McTagg, and this is The New Statesman podcast, and I'm joined today by our

political editor, Andrew Maher.

Hello.

Hello, Tom.

So let's turn to your column in this week's magazine, Andrew, largely focused on Shabana

Mahmood.

Now, can you give us a gist of what your column is saying?

So Shabana Mahmood, a really, really interesting figure in the government, partly because

almost everyone on the right of politics is bigging her up as the next prime minister, and quite

a lot of people inside the Labour Party as well. Less well known to the public at the moment,

but very straight talking and very clear thinking

in her attitude to the biggest problem of all, apart from the budget, which is the borders

and the migration problem.

And I think what's interesting is pretty clear now that she has a radical and dramatic plan

to cut the number of people coming across into the UK, across the channel and elsewhere.

And she's going to be going for the European Convention on Human Rights, Articles 3 and 8.

She's going to be going for the refugee convention and lots of the rest of the human rights law.

...