Now time to thank our partner for this episode The Economist.

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But for over 180 years, the economists' high-quality journalism has helped readers cut through the noise and makes sense of the world's most important stories.

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Search for the economist and make sense of the world around you.

Hello, it's Beth Rigby, counting down to our first proper electoral dysfunction.

Come into your podcast feed on Friday, March the 1st.

Me, Conservative peer Ruth Davidson and Labour MP Jess Phillips in your ears every week.

But we didn't want you to wait until March, and we also wanted to explain why it's called electoral dysfunction.

We have called this pod electoral dysfunction for two reasons.

One, we're heading into a general election and two, more broadly, politics isn't working for

lots of people. And also, it's not just us heading for an election this year.

We've got a bonanza year of elections. Over half the world's population are going to the polls.

That's over 4 billion people in 40 countries. We thought it's a great time to talk about

leadership, campaigns, what do voters want, what don't they want, why isn't politics working?

I've got two practitioners here who spend their time thinking about it, they spent their

life doing it. Jesse's on the doorstep, I imagine, a lot. But what I thought I would kick

...