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Hello, welcome to Political Thinking,

the programme that involves a conversation with rather than an interrogation of people

who shape our political thinking.

Over the years, we've talked to many of the key figures in British public life,

not least to the man and the woman who wish to be our next Prime Minister,

to Rishi Sunak and to Liz Truss.

My day job is doing what the newspapers often refer to as a grilling of a politician,

taking them through policy ideas, looking for contradictions,

checking whether they understand their facts.

There are times over the years I've done these interviews for political thinking,

where I've worried if they just feel a little bit too soft, a bit too gentle,

a bit too much on the terms of the politicians themselves.

But never more so than today have I seen the value of them,

because crucial to this Tory leadership election is the backstories of the two people

who wish to replace Boris Johnson.

Rishi Sunak, insisting that you should see him not as the very wealthy man he is now,

but the son of a former Assistant of GP, the son of immigrants,

a man who is a British success story, who knows how to make Britain work.

And Liz Truss saying yes she has been on a journey from her early political views,

which were far to the left of the one she advocates now,

but she insists it's part of the story of her determination,

...