Hello and welcome to the political party.

Today's guest is James Frith, the Labour MP for Bury North, and now a PPS to the Deputy Prime Minister,

and ask me exactly what that means and what it entails.

Just to let you know, the political party returns to the stage in just a few weeks' time on Monday, the 26th of January, with a special VIP guest I will not be able to announce in advance. There are a handful of tickets left for that. Don't miss out. Click on the link in the blurb. We'll go to Mattford.com. On the 16th of February, my guest is David Milliband. On the night of March, my guest is Zach Polanski. And on the 30th of March, my guest is Lisa Nandi tickets for all those shows on sale now. And my tour finally gets up and running. I debuted my new stand-up show Defying Calamity at the Edinburgh Festival last summer. It starts in Birmingham on the 28th of January, then goes to Dorking on the 29th and Northampton on the 30th. And then in February, I go to Lancaster, Brighton, Tumbridge Wells. I play the Bloomsbury Theatre on Valentine's Day. Favisham, Maidston, Milton Keynes, Canterbury, Bridport, loads more places around the UK, including

dates in the south-west of England and in Liverpool, big gigging, Nottingham at the Theatre Royal,

if you go to Matt Ford.com and basically going everywhere, so you'll be able to catch me there.

So on to James Frith, who is a very talented Labour MP, and was elected in 2017, lost the seat in 2019,

went again in 2024, and he's now starting to climb the ladder.

And it's really interesting talking to someone who is clearly on the radar and is very

impressive.

But also is very much politician of my generation and with all the things that entails in terms of his interests

and his references, you know, for so long you get used to politicians being older than you.

And obviously the older you get, and I'm 43 now, which I guess in political terms is still young.

Now you're interviewing people that, I mean, I've interviewed actually since the election,

a lot of people are a lot younger than me, which is even more even more wonderful but James you can see why he's kind of been marked out

a bit can see why he's on the rise just absolutely tells it like it is there's no BS he speaks

from the heart he's a really entertaining bloke and we talk it's the because it's the new year and it still is the new year, really, in it, people are starting to go back to work. MBs are still human beings. So does he, does he have the same anxieties about returning to work that the rest of us do? So we cover a lot in this. There's a lot of stuff about, I don't want to blow it.

Lots of personal stuff. Lots of political stuff. I hope you'll enjoy it. This is James Frith.

James, you've come back to Parliament after Christmas. Like, is it, is being an MP and being a PPS and we'll come on to that, is it like being

a normal person?

Do you dread going back to work?

Oh yeah.

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