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

We are on the Wednesday after the Thursday before, so we know a little bit more about

the future direction of British politics, but not a huge amount.

We still don't know

what deal has been struck between the Tories and the DUP. We've been asked to say a little

bit more about who we are before we start. So let me briefly introduce who we have here today,

Helen Thompson, who knows a lot about the euro, among other things.

I watched another episode of Twin Peaks and I was even more confused than I was by episode

5. And it was very gory this time as well, stabbing.

It was a very dark, disturbing episode.

Chris Bickerton, who is an expert on European politics and on populism.

I didn't mark scripts. I marked scripts the night before.

So I just read my newspaper.

Your newspaper,

the one that you own in Holland. Cougatrosho. Is it work? Okay. Who has been writing about the French elections for the new statesman and also works on a project here in Cambridge about

conspiracy theories for people who like that kind of thing. And Chris Brooke, political theorist, but also who knows a lot about the inner workings of British

politics at the local level. So I had a rather extraordinary journey that I traveled from Milwaukee

to Cambridge and I got stuck overnight in Toronto and I had to make it back to Cambridge in order

to attend an exam yesterday and then I turned up at the wrong venue. And missed the exam.

Yes. We want to take a step back however and think a little bit because we could talk

forever about what might come next and then we'll get it wrong.

What might this mean more broadly for the politics of the left? We'll start with that.

...