Hello and welcome to yet another special episode of the Uciss Itel podcast. And this week's special is a recording of an in-conversation event we held with former Labour leader Neil Kinnock the other week, former European Commissioner as well, of course, and a stalwarted British politics. We talked about Kirstama's chances in the next election, what it was like making

that speech in 1985, and what he thinks of the state of British politics at the moment.

Have a listen. It's absolutely gripping stuff. Hope you enjoy it. Can I just say before we start, for those of you who don't know, if you can scan that QR code, you'll be taken to something called Slido, which will allow you to ask questions, which I feel totally at liberty to ignore.

So we'll see how things go. But I've got an iPad here that'll let me keep an eye on the questions as they come in.

So if there's something you really want to ask, if you stick it in the Slido and send it, then there's a chance it will get asked.

The other thing is, because we're very populous at heart, you can vote for the questions

you want me to ask.

So I will see the most popular questions at the top of my list.

So if there's something you think, oh yeah, I'd like to know the answer to that, then if you

vote for the question that strikes you as the most interesting, I will see it.

Okay? We'll see how that works. It might not work. And as I said, we might end up, I mean, this is Neil Kinnett.

We might end up spending an hour on the first question, but we'll see what happens.

Try to avoid referenda.

Right. Without further ado, this is Neil Kinnett. He was the leader of the Labor. I mean, I don't really need to do his bio, do I?

Vice President of the European Commission, head of the British Council. I've got one question to start you off because I never get this right. The seat you were first MP for, we Google this today and got someone to say it with a Welsh accent, because

I used to say Bedwetty, which is clearly wrong. Yeah, and that was your satirical phase.

Yeah, all right. So go on.

Bedwesty. There we go. It's very easy. Try and say it. Yeah. All right. I want to, I mean,

you've had such a long and distinguished career. There's a lot to go through. I want to start off back then when you were leader of the Labour Party.

We'll spend most of our time on contemporary politics.

But, God, it must have been a soul-destroying job to be leader of the opposition against Margaret Thatcher, wasn't it?

I'm one of the very few people in the world who's fortunate enough to be able to absolutely date my midlife crisis.

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