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Hello, welcome to the special Saturday edition of Coffee House Shots.

I'm James Heel and I'm joined today by Stuart Wood, Lordwood, who, as well as being a member of the House of Lords for the past 15 years, was previously also an academic and still is actually at Oxford University. And so I wonder, Stuart, we're here today talking about the different essays that Labour grandees have been putting out. Tony Blair, Andy Burnham, West Streeting and Keir Stama. You were a tutor. What mark could you give each of these contributions? Well, that's a good question. Well, Tony Blazers was too long. No, I mean, Tony Blair's,

it's an interesting essay, Tony Blair's one, because the first third of it is really angry. It's

brimming with, he almost goes straight. I suspect that his team helped him write a lot of the substantive policy bit.

But the first part really feels like his voice.

And so the first third of it is essentially, I can't believe this is happening.

And then the next two thirds are this is what we should do about it.

So I think I would say stylistically it's a bit

confused. But it's a fascinating essay. I mean, we'll come on to it, obviously. West Streeting's piece, I think, was a, was a plea to the Labour Party that, you know, I am really Labour, I know you don't think I am. A bit of that going on. And it interesting that he landed on the inequality gap as it were in Blair essay in the way that Andy Burnham did but in a very different way

in the way

that Andy Burnham did, but in a very different way, the style of Wes and Andy came through

in their very different takes with a similar lead concept of inequality being missing in Blair's

essays. And Andy's was very much of his personality. I thought it was, you know, about politics

being a human

business and the sort of missing gap in the DNA of Westminster and all that sort of thing.

So they all reflected their personalities, I think, in different ways, which was fascinating to see.

And actually, really refreshing. I know everyone's, it's become one of the trite things

to say in the last few days, but great to see the debate back in politics.

It's absolutely true, though, but great to see the character of these individuals manifesting itself in their views of the world, I think, which is great to see. Well, maybe the fact that the last of all of them was Kirstama, which maybe says something. But, I mean, what do you make of his as well? It had a section in it, which I thought was fascinating about the 2008 crash being the unheralded pivotal change in British politics, but actually the roots of what came through after 2008 go way back into the last Labor government, the cost of living crisis, the kind of bountiful years of, you know, roughly speaking, 1992 when we crashed out of the ERM,

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