Hello and welcome to rock and roll politics, the podcast with me Steve Richards,

where we delve deep, put into context, the volcanic eruptions around British

politics, and, yeah, explore a range of themes, which we're going to do today.

If that's okay with you, I'm going to briefly, very briefly reflect on the build-up to

the budget, which is, of course, coming up this week.

The most talked about budget in advance for decades.

I wonder if it will be the most talked about afterwards.

I doubt it personally.

You know, the ones like the 1981 Jeffrey Howe budget, the Osborne budget, which established austerity

and so on. Anyway, we'll have a reflection on that, but I'm mainly going to focus on some fantastic

questions we've had, which relate to the COVID inquiry, to Shabana Mahmood's proposals, but not sort of rooted in

last week what the lessons are for the state and the way Britain is governed. So many good

questions, actually. It's lucky we've got another podcast later on in the week to cover some more of them.

But that's what's coming up.

A couple of notices as well.

Thank you, those of you who joined the Patreon Live event.

We range widely there, mainly on whether Kirstama will survive and having a kind of analysis of potential successes.

And for Patreon subscribers and do subscribe, a couple of coffees and you get podcasts galore,

ad free a day early, and you get live events and bonus podcasts.

Anyway, it was recorded and will be available for those of you who weren't able to make it,

but a lot joined in. It was really great. And thank you all those who came to the legendary

rope tackle art center in Shoreham, packed evening. Just interestingly, the prediction was

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