Hello, my name is David Ronserman and this is Talking Politics.

This week we're talking to Mary Beard about women in power. It's one of a series of conversations

we'll be doing over the next year in conjunction with London viewer books, talking to some

of their writers about some of the things that they're writing and doing with the LRB.

How do we think about women's intellects? How do we think they're smart? In what way can a woman

be clever? You know, if you go back to the ancient world people say, oh no, Gricks and Romans

they had a woman goddess of wisdom. No, they jolly well didn't. They had an androgen who

was a virgin and not even born from a woman. Was there goddess of wisdom? So there is no

way for women to be wise. We'll be coming to that conversation a little bit later. First

of all, we're going to catch up on British politics because we've neglected that a little,

I think, with other things going on. And this week there are two big biolections. So I've

got Helen, Thompson and Chris Brook here. The biolections are in Stoke on Trent and Copeland

in Cumbria. They are both being held as a result of the sitting MPs standing down to take

up other job opportunities and the jobs are sort of symbolic of these MPs, distance from

the Corbin project. Jamie Reed in Copeland is rejoining the nuclear industry and Tristram

Hunt in Stoke on Trent is leaving to become director of the V&A. I know Jamie Corbin is a big

fan of the arts, but I don't think the V&A is exactly his model of a socialist arts policy.

But that's not what this is about. It's not about who was there before. It's about who

might win. So we'll start with Stoke. Chris, Stoke is interesting for lots of reasons. It

was always an interesting seat. Tristram Hunt held it. I believe with the fewest number

of actual votes because very low turnout and then it was a three way split. He held

it for Labour and then UKIP and the Tories were pretty much neck and neck second and

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