Welcome to In Conversation, the regular podcast of InCompass. Go to InCompass-Hevon

Europe.com for free access to all our podcasts today. This is Paul Adamson and I'm in conversation

with Matt Ford. Matt Ford is a stand-up comedian, a broadcaster, a podcaster,

a writer perform on a new series of Spitting Image, which is now being broadcast. And last for

not least, the author of a new book, Politically Homeless, which is going to be our first topic

of conversation, Matt. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much for having me.

Pleasure to have you, my friend.

So let's start at the beginning. You're from a single parent household, your mother living on

benefits. Your mother obviously had a very poor circumstance in which to bring up you and your

justice. So you had a brief flirtation obviously with the social workers Socialist Workers' Party, as you recounted a book,

but you obviously left that quite quickly.

What I find intriguing is you didn't then just move to the kind of the hard left of the Labour Party

or even the soft left.

You kind of went straight into the centre.

Why did you make that kind of lurch?

Well, I think I was 14, so it didn't feel like a sort of huge decision, really.

I joined the SWP because, you know, I was walking through Nottingham.

They were passionate.

They were, you know, the energy is really attractive.

And I think they had really simple answers

and that, again, is attractive, particularly if you're young, if you're kind of vulnerable

or, you know, sort of malleable in any way. But my experience in there, even though some of them

...