Hello and welcome to rock and roll politics, the podcast with me, Steve Richards.

Thank you very much for tuning in.

Well, we have a lot to cram in in our time together.

Was it only the end of last week when we were all gathered to reflect on the implications of the by-election?

And now we are in World War III.

Well, not quite, but you know what I mean.

A military action already spreading well beyond Iran wholly predictably.

And if it's okay with all of you, I will reflect a bit on that in a moment. Before that,

yeah, some amazing number of emails have come in about this by-election. It is one of those events that have

triggered all kinds of thoughts about where it leads, what it portends, if anything, because by-election

sometimes appear to be more significant than they become. But we'll come to all of those via your

brilliant emails. Just one notice, those of you who kindly subscribe to Patreon, the latest bonus podcast will be in your Patreon feed.

And the series of bonus podcasts is looking at when prime ministers fall and the latest is on the fall of Margaret Thatcher in 1990, and the

lessons that can be learnt or apply to the kind of feverish speculation about Girstama and

how long he has got, because Prime Ministers, apart from the craziness of the Tory years,

don't fall very often from internal pressure.

She did, in the end, but it was in the end, it is absolutely applicable.

She'd been there a hell of a long time.

Anyway, that's there.

Do subscribe because it helps keep the podcast on the road.

And thank you those who have done so.

I'm pleased that when Kirstama announced that Britain was getting involved in this Iranian mission, having said before that it wasn't going to overtly get involved, that the lessons or the mistakes of

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