This is a global original podcast.

Hello and welcome to Full Disclosure, a podcast project that I've described in the introduction to every episode so far, so I won't bother going through the motions again.

I'm delighted to tell you that this week's guest is Owen Jones,

who, well, it's a bit of a cliche, Owen, but you don't really need much of an introduction, do you?

I don't know how to...

Oh, can we swear? I was going to swear already from the bat, but maybe I won't.

No, absolutely. Gob, S-H-I-T-E, there we go. Is that my name? And this being an interview that goes through the life and times before arriving sometimes

somewhat belatedly in the here and now, we should probably say in advance, we could probably do two

of these. We could do the traditional full disclosure and then I'm sure we'd have plenty to fill

another hour just talking about the state of the nation

and left-wing politics in particular.

So two traumas?

Two, yes, isn't it?

Let's begin at the beginning,

and that is in Sheffield, in South Yorkshire,

although I always think of you as being more a son of Stockport

than a son of the steel works.

You know what, though, it's funny

because my mum used to have this

really embarrassing description on her website where she said that she had four kids and they all had

made in sheffield stamped on their belly buttons i told us to change that in case to anyway um yeah

i was born in sheffield so i'm a plastic yorkshire but then via falkirk I went through all the scenic parts of the country,

...