Hello and welcome to Episode 3 of Mandelson, a homosexual history.

My name is Ben Miller.

I'm a writer, historian, member of the board of the Schueless Museum in Berlin.

And my name is Hugh Lemmy.

I'm a writer and author.

On last week's episode, we left the titular Peter Mandelson having made it through the crucible of late

80s homophobia in order to become Labor's unlikely candidate for Hartlepool in the 1992

general election. Where are we picking up this week?

Well, we'll start where we left off, the eve of the 1992 election and hopes at that point were very high, both for Labor and for Mandelson himself.

So Margaret Thatcher, who'd been in power for 11 years, had finally been toppled in 1990 by her own concieries as the Tory party torn itself apart over the issue of Europe.

Imagine that happening.

Yeah, time to take another drink, Ben.

In the leadership battle that followed, she was replaced by John Major,

a man who's so dull that it was one said of him that he actually ran away from the circus

to become an accountant.

That's a little line about him, which is actually partly true because his father had

actually been a circus trapeze artist who fought in a Uruguayan civil war.

And he gave up on his life of adventure to start his own Garden Gnome Factory.

Major himself moved away from that to become an accountant and lifelong Tory.

So having lost thatcher...

I'm sorry.

Garden Gnome Factory?

...