BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

If you'd asked me just a few weeks ago whether I was looking forward to a new political

year, the answer I'm afraid would have been no.

I was weary, sick of the endless deadlines that come and go of the seemingly never-ending

talk about the backstop and the backstop to the backstop.

But I've got my mojo back.

A little breather.

A little break over Christmas has made me realise that there has been almost no time I can

remember, which is more laden with possibilities when the makeup of our politics as well as the

future of our country is more up for grabs.

The fascinating thing to find out in the days to come is whether other people, the politicians,

have benefited from the same breather.

When they went home, met family, met friends, went to the pub, went to the Christmas market,

did people say to them, what on earth are you not doing?

Or did they cheer them on their way and say, you make a stand, you carry on being defined?

That in many ways will shape what we see in the next few days and weeks.

Or MPs as hardened in the positions they took just before Christmas or a sum just beginning

to think, could I hold my nose and vote for the Prime Minister's deal as the next best

thing?

That's what we've been trying to do with this podcast.

To hear what motivates politicians, what makes them tick, what in their deep past shapes

who they are and what they think, what they've got to say beyond in other words, the daily

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