Hello, I'm James, I'm one of the producers of Stories of Our Times, and this weekend we're

bringing you an extra episode from another Times podcast, The Red Box Politics Podcast.

This week, Matt Chawley had a fascinating chat with Tim Shipman, the Sunday Times chief

political commentator, about the art of the political lunch. Very few people have had

as many political lunches as Tim. They discuss whining and dining ministers, the state of politics

and Tim's next book. We're back tomorrow, as usual, for now, here's Matt Chawley and Tim Shipman.

Hello, I've got a table for two, but for Matt Chawley, 130.

Yes, indeed.

You lead the way. I think a booze, I think a booze. Let's take a booze. Perfect, thank you.

Right, we've got the menu. We're doing wine or food first. Where is the wine?

We're going to get something on the go. We're going to start with the drink.

I think if you've had a politician, you'd loosen their tongue a little.

How often now do you get a politician who might start with a... a lifener at a pair of teeth?

I think it depends when you're doing it. If it's lunch, almost never these days, most people are

and well, you could say dull or you could say professional, you could get lunch done.

When I started out in the lobby in 2001, I think most people drank most of the time,

almost nobody drinks it lunchtime now and there are even some journalists that don't as well, I'm told.

If it's a dinner and you've specifically booked a dinner with, say, a cabinet minister,

they'll often arrive late usually because they've had a terribly busy and important day running

the country and they quite often do want to let their hair down a little bit, so you're more likely

to be able to entice them into a libation, but the days of Sunday journalists particularly used

to have lengthy lunches on a Tuesday and a Wednesday, and there was such a thing in those days as a

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