Hello and welcome to our first podcast from the Department of Politics, People and Place at De Montfort University in Leicester in the UK.  Just to give you some context, it is 10 February 2021 and we are in national lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic.  At the moment we are all working remotely from home, away from campus and have got together to record this podcast using MS Teams.  In this first podcast Ros Lishman, Associate Professor, is joined by Dr Clodagh Harrington, Associate Professor of American Politics, Alistair Jones, Associate Professor and Dr Simon Stevens, Lecturer in Political Theory. Most importantly of all Kyra Balderston also joined us for the recording – Kyra is our Department Frontrunner, which means she’s a member of staff and also a full-time student on the History and Politics programme.  If you’d like to get in touch, follow us on Twitter at @DMUPolitics or Instagram at @dmupolitics or via email through Ros rlishman@dmu.ac.uk and share with us your thoughts, opinions and suggestions!  Keep a look on our social media platforms for details about future episode from students and staff in the Department with invited guest.