This week in politics has had a nostalgic feel to it, with a Home Secretary making an emergency statement to the House of Commons and the return to our screens of a jailed former Tory cabinet minister.
On Politics Weekly, the Guardian's new podcast, I picked over these events with some of Westminster's finest. Polly Toynbee, the Guardian's great columnist clashed (in the politest possible terms) with Anthony Browne, the director of David Cameron's favourite think tank, Policy Exchange. We were also joined by Julian Glover, the Guardian's chief leader writer, who is the paper's 'wise eminence', to borrow a phrase from the Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch Brown.
We discussed the emergency statement to the Commons on Tuesday by Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, after it emerged that 5,000 illegal immigrants had been cleared to work in security. Smith will be remaining in her job, judging my the views of my guests.
We also covered Gordon Brown's foreign policy speech to the Mansion House on Monday night. And finally we talked about Jonathan Aitken, the only ex cabinet minister to have been jailed in the last 100 years, after the news that he is to advise the former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith on prison reform. Polly was unamused by news of Aitken's return.
Do tell us what you think. Thank you for your words of advice about our first programme last week.
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