Hello and welcome to rock and roll politics, the podcast with me, Steve Richards. I normally say,

hello and welcome to rock and roll politics, the weekly podcast, but I

haven't done it for the last few weeks, so I can't say that. And thank you very much to all those

of you who tweeted asking where the podcast was. It kind of disappeared. I was thrilled to read

the tweets, but it made me feel kind of guilty as well that I

wasn't doing the podcast, so I was both thrilled and felt terrible. Anyway, it's back, so I've been

really busy in these crazy times that we are living through, but it's back. Here it is,

the weekly podcast. So thank you for waiting. And today I thought I'd look if it's back. Here it is, the weekly podcast. So thank you for waiting.

And today I thought I'd look if it's okay with all of you, not that you've got much choice

in the matter because you're just listening. You're not in a theatre or stage event where

you can influence what happens directly. I think the most significant thing that's happened this week was not

the budget, though the budget was interesting in ways that I think will have quite a profound

effect on the political debate, much less so on the state of the economy. But the most significant

thing I found this week was a news night on, I think it was no Tuesday night,

where Evan Davis in his last show for Newsnight interviewed George Osborne at length,

and then there was a panel, some of you well have seen it, in which Polly Toimby was one of the panelists. And I think it was

a television event of great significance. It was wonderful theatre, but it has much wider significance

than that. It's all about the assumptions we carry with us as we view the politics in its current

feebral and complex state.

For those of you didn't see it, and most of you will have done,

because it's kind of trended on Twitter and YouTube and everything,

is after a long interview with George Osborne,

...