Hello, my name is David Runseman and this is Talking Politics.

I watched Ramadrid playing athletic home at the last night and watched Ronaldo's school

a hat trick and he was extraordinary.

I was watching the Minnesota twins and the baseball game was very boring and I turned it

off and then they proceeded to hit six home runs after the third inning.

I'm joined this week by Helen Thompson, Aaron Rapport and Chris Brook and we're going

to talk about the conservative party.

I went to dinner last night with the participants in the Gender and the Political Academy

conference, the highlight of which was William's posing for a photograph with Marsha from

Pusky Rhyde.

No, no, no photo shot, no photo shot.

This week we're also hoping to put out a couple of extra episodes, one with Thomas

Piketty, one with Michael Gove for balance.

We'll tell you more about that at the end.

The reason we're going to talk about the Tory party today is because of what I've always

thought is the deep mystery about the conservatives, which is how they keep winning and I'm not

trying to be flippant here.

It's often said that the Conservative party which has about a 200 year history is the most

successful election winning machine ever in Western democracy.

It has an incredible record and when it's put like that, I think it's often because it's

not just me, people think it doesn't look like a ruthless, dynamic election winning machine.

And some of the things that you think you need to just keep churning out wins, charisma

...