Okay, hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissin. And this is the show for you if you're bored of people arguing on the internet over subjects they know nothing about at trigonometry. We don't pretend to be the experts. We ask the experts.

Our fantastic expert guest this week is an LBC radio presenter, Ian Dale.

Welcome to Trigonon.

Hello.

Hi. Thank you so much for coming on.

I was about to introduce you as a conservative radio presenter.

And then you said, no, no, no, no, let's have a conversation about it.

So why didn't you first tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are and then we'll get into the whole conservative thing?

Well, God, how do I start? Why did I start off? I studied German, believe it or not, at the University of East Anglia and was intended to be a German teacher.

Languages were my things, anything I was good at at school.

Can I just interrupt you there?

As a former teacher in, well done and avoiding the profession.

This point to me that wonders whether at some point, I mean I was 56 yesterday so there is still

time but I've always thought I might go back to do it.

Don't.

It certainly wouldn't be in a secondary school.

I couldn't cope with that.

Anyway, I got into politics at university

and ended up working in the House of Commons for a couple of years

for a couple of years for a Tory MP back in the mid 80s when politics really was great fun.

And then I had a succession of jobs in lobbying.

I was a financial journalist. I opened a political book shop in Westminster, became a publisher,

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