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The scene is a tastefully decorated modern kitchen in Stoke Newington. The former Absolute Radio host, Geoff Lloyd, is scurrying about making coffees.

Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour Party from 2010-15, is munching a miso and white-chocolate cookie from the excellent café across the road, contemplating the legalisation of cannabis in American states. “Gosh! We’re really behind, aren’t we?”

Jess Phillips, MP for Birmingham Yardley, is meanwhile discussing plans for her birthday at the weekend. She shares the day with John Lennon, PJ Harvey and David Cameron. “Every year my husband sends me a birthday card with David Cameron on it to piss me off. Fortunately, they’re getting harder to find, ha ha!” Some men from Thames Water keep coming through to do something with the drains. It’s a bright, clear day.

The Stoke Newington area has long been a hotbed of revolutionary activity: it was the home of the 18th-century feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and the anarchist Stoke Newington Eight. And now it is where Lloyd and Miliband — “Call me Geoff!” “Call me Ed!” — record their podcast, Reasons to Be Cheerful. In case you haven’t downloaded it yet, well, you haven’t had the pleasure of hearing Ed Miliband making horse- porn gags while laying the groundwork for a future socialist utopia.

Each week, he and Lloyd discuss a big political idea — universal basic income, say, or how to deal with the tech monopolies — in an upbeat style that won’t be too unsettling for fans of Lloyd’s drivetime output. They welcome special guests — this week, Jess Phillips and comedian Sara Pascoe — and also spend quite a lot of time talking about Geoff’s fancy Japanese toilet. “Let me just tell listeners, it is a spectacular toilet!” gushes Miliband in the first episode. “It looks like a normal toilet, but then it has these electronic devices, sort of next door to the toilet.”

And if going from Leader of the Opposition to podcast co-host might seem like a downward trajectory, well you underestimate the intensity of Miliband and Lloyd’s bromance and their command of the podcast form. “You see, I’ve been secretly in love with Geoff ever since he interviewed me on Absolute Radio during the 2015 election,” Miliband explains in the kitchen.

“I think it was the Independent that said: ‘Is this the interview that will change everything for Ed Miliband?’” says Lloyd. “It didn’t,” deadpans Miliband.

Best podcasts for your commute - in pictures 15 show all Best podcasts for your commute - in pictures 1/15 What will you listen to on your walk to work Friday? Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images 2/15 Tiny Desk Concerts This series of live concerts hosted by NPR Music brings some of the biggest names to perform in a tiny office, at the desk of All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen. Listening (or watching, if you prefer the video version) feels intimate and personal, almost as if you’re there yourself, spending a chilled-out afternoon with Tegan and Sarah or Adele. iTunes 3/15 The Bright Sessions This award-winning podcast is a sci-fi audio drama about people in therapy who have supernatural abilities. The art form of radio drama can often be pushed aside for the ever-popular narrative shows, but this cast of talented voice actors and captivating story threads will keep you hooked. iTunes 4/15 Modern Love Based on the popular New York Times series of reader-submitted essays about love, this podcasts goes deep into the readings by adding commentary from notable personalities, updates by the essayists themselves. Hosts Meghna Chakrabarti and Modern Love editor Daniel Jones give listeners an introspective view into one of the world’s most joyful yet complex and confusing phenomenon -- being in love. iTunes 5/15 Reply All For a show about the internet, this podcasts teaches listeners so much more. It’s about stolen cell phones, rainbow dogs, time travel and everything in between. Hosts PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman have an unbeatable dynamic, explaining quirky internet stories in ways that feel more like a conversation over coffee than a lesson in tech. iTunes 6/15 Kitchen Sisters Presents From Peabody award winning “Kitchen Sisters” Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva comes a powerhouse production that brings audio to life, integrating in lost recordings, hidden worlds and stories of real people. The episodes are a treat for the ear, telling deeply layered stories interlaced with pleasing music and tasteful field noise. iTunes 7/15 Worst Idea of All Time Two guys who pick a terrible film and watch it every week for a year. What could go wrong? Guy Montgomery and Tim Batt, two New Zealand comedians, started the show by watching Grown Ups 2 once a week, every week for a year. Then they watched Sex and The City 2 52 times. Now they are watching We Are Your Friends. A funny show or the public deterioration of two grown men? We’ll let you decide. iTunes 8/15 Love + Radio Nick van der Kolk’s Love and Radio doesn’t try to teach, preach or instill. It just tells stories in the most primal form, introducing real characters and scenarios that feel just that -- real. Nothing is as it seems, and the complicated plots of the show keeps you on your toes in a peaceful way, not a “true crime” way. Truly a delight. iTunes 9/15 My Dad Wrote a Porno When your 60-year-old father has written erotic books, what choice do you have but to read them aloud for thousands of listeners? Tune in to hear Jamie Morton and friends James Cooper and BBC Radio 1’s Alice Levine read a new chapter every Monday. No guarantees that you won’t laugh out loud in public. iTunes 10/15 The High Low A follow up to the freshly retired PanDolly Podcast, Pandora Sykes and Dolly Alderton’s High Low mixes the trivial and the political into a tight, quick 45 minutes - literally, the two talk so fast. The female duo echoes the American trend (Think: Two Dope Queens, Call Your Girlfriend), but acknowledges their posh privilege in a refreshingly transparent manner. A chat show that’s mindful, not mindless? The perfect background for your commute. The High Low 11/15 Desert Island Discs It’s the classic game played on long car rides since the beginning of time -- what would you take with you on a desert island? This BBC4 programme was created by Roy Plomley in 1942, and is now hosted by Kirsty Young, who asks guests to choose the eight records they would take with them to a desert island. You can listen to every castaway from 1942 to the present, from David Beckham to Liberaci. iTunes 12/15 Adam Buxton Podcast Get an inside look at the actor/director/comedian’s life with this podcast, which is really more like a casual chat. There are silly rambles and even some singing, but you’d be surprised at much you’ll learn about Buxton’s life and the lives of his boisterous guests. iTunes 13/15 The Moth Stories told on the Moth Radio Hour are true, remembered live (without notes) and expose the rawest bits of the human condition. Moth storytellers in a roomful of strangers, telling stories that are heartwarming, terrifying and exhilarating. These stories are personal -- anyone with a tale can volunteer. For the stories behind the stories, this podcast re-airs all episodes of the show, plus additional pieces from their archives. iTunes 14/15 My Favorite Murder True crime podcasts are all the rage (Serial, S-Town, and the like), but MFM is a different kind of thrill. Each episode is hosted by die-hard crime story fans Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, who tell each other their favorite tales of murder. Friends and fans call in to report hometown crime stories too so, as the website says: “Check your anxiety at the door”. iTunes 15/15 Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review The historic duo have been presenting radio programmes together for ages, but this podcast is one to note. It’s a simple format: one hour of Mayo discussing the week’s top films, a conversation or two with an actor or director, and then one hour of Kemode ranting about the week’s film releases. Kemode is totally unleashed, launching unplanned assaults in the “Kermodean rants” he is so famously known for. The BBC Radio 5 programme is the channel’s “flagship movie podcast”. iTunes 1/15 What will you listen to on your walk to work Friday? Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images 2/15 Tiny Desk Concerts This series of live concerts hosted by NPR Music brings some of the biggest names to perform in a tiny office, at the desk of All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen. Listening (or watching, if you prefer the video version) feels intimate and personal, almost as if you’re there yourself, spending a chilled-out afternoon with Tegan and Sarah or Adele. iTunes 3/15 The Bright Sessions This award-winning podcast is a sci-fi audio drama about people in therapy who have supernatural abilities. The art form of radio drama can often be pushed aside for the ever-popular narrative shows, but this cast of talented voice actors and captivating story threads will keep you hooked. iTunes 4/15 Modern Love Based on the popular New York Times series of reader-submitted essays about love, this podcasts goes deep into the readings by adding commentary from notable personalities, updates by the essayists themselves. Hosts Meghna Chakrabarti and Modern Love editor Daniel Jones give listeners an introspective view into one of the world’s most joyful yet complex and confusing phenomenon -- being in love. iTunes 5/15 Reply All For a show about the internet, this podcasts teaches listeners so much more. It’s about stolen cell phones, rainbow dogs, time travel and everything in between. Hosts PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman have an unbeatable dynamic, explaining quirky internet stories in ways that feel more like a conversation over coffee than a lesson in tech. iTunes 6/15 Kitchen Sisters Presents From Peabody award winning “Kitchen Sisters” Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva comes a powerhouse production that brings audio to life, integrating in lost recordings, hidden worlds and stories of real people. The episodes are a treat for the ear, telling deeply layered stories interlaced with pleasing music and tasteful field noise. iTunes 7/15 Worst Idea of All Time Two guys who pick a terrible film and watch it every week for a year. What could go wrong? Guy Montgomery and Tim Batt, two New Zealand comedians, started the show by watching Grown Ups 2 once a week, every week for a year. Then they watched Sex and The City 2 52 times. Now they are watching We Are Your Friends. A funny show or the public deterioration of two grown men? We’ll let you decide. iTunes 8/15 Love + Radio Nick van der Kolk’s Love and Radio doesn’t try to teach, preach or instill. It just tells stories in the most primal form, introducing real characters and scenarios that feel just that -- real. Nothing is as it seems, and the complicated plots of the show keeps you on your toes in a peaceful way, not a “true crime” way. Truly a delight. iTunes 9/15 My Dad Wrote a Porno When your 60-year-old father has written erotic books, what choice do you have but to read them aloud for thousands of listeners? Tune in to hear Jamie Morton and friends James Cooper and BBC Radio 1’s Alice Levine read a new chapter every Monday. No guarantees that you won’t laugh out loud in public. iTunes 10/15 The High Low A follow up to the freshly retired PanDolly Podcast, Pandora Sykes and Dolly Alderton’s High Low mixes the trivial and the political into a tight, quick 45 minutes - literally, the two talk so fast. The female duo echoes the American trend (Think: Two Dope Queens, Call Your Girlfriend), but acknowledges their posh privilege in a refreshingly transparent manner. A chat show that’s mindful, not mindless? The perfect background for your commute. The High Low 11/15 Desert Island Discs It’s the classic game played on long car rides since the beginning of time -- what would you take with you on a desert island? This BBC4 programme was created by Roy Plomley in 1942, and is now hosted by Kirsty Young, who asks guests to choose the eight records they would take with them to a desert island. You can listen to every castaway from 1942 to the present, from David Beckham to Liberaci. iTunes 12/15 Adam Buxton Podcast Get an inside look at the actor/director/comedian’s life with this podcast, which is really more like a casual chat. There are silly rambles and even some singing, but you’d be surprised at much you’ll learn about Buxton’s life and the lives of his boisterous guests. iTunes 13/15 The Moth Stories told on the Moth Radio Hour are true, remembered live (without notes) and expose the rawest bits of the human condition. Moth storytellers in a roomful of strangers, telling stories that are heartwarming, terrifying and exhilarating. These stories are personal -- anyone with a tale can volunteer. For the stories behind the stories, this podcast re-airs all episodes of the show, plus additional pieces from their archives. iTunes 14/15 My Favorite Murder True crime podcasts are all the rage (Serial, S-Town, and the like), but MFM is a different kind of thrill. Each episode is hosted by die-hard crime story fans Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, who tell each other their favorite tales of murder. Friends and fans call in to report hometown crime stories too so, as the website says: “Check your anxiety at the door”. iTunes 15/15 Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review The historic duo have been presenting radio programmes together for ages, but this podcast is one to note. It’s a simple format: one hour of Mayo discussing the week’s top films, a conversation or two with an actor or director, and then one hour of Kemode ranting about the week’s film releases. Kemode is totally unleashed, launching unplanned assaults in the “Kermodean rants” he is so famously known for. The BBC Radio 5 programme is the channel’s “flagship movie podcast”. iTunes

But the interview, broadcast during that ill-starred campaign (the bacon sandwich, the Ed stone, etc) did at least show Miliband wasn’t the Marxist robot he’d been made out to be by the Right-wing media. Responding to Lloyd’s questions about Eighties computer games and the like, Miliband became the person associates often said he was: geeky, sure, but funny, warm and excellent at translating complicated policy into everyday language. So when Lloyd was pondering a podcast for disheartened progressives earlier this year, he thought of Miliband. “Brexit was on the horizon, the general election didn’t seem like anything in the realms of the positive… And I wanted things to be upbeat about.”

As it happened, Miliband had been toying with taking ideas such as universal basic income to a wider audience ever since he’d stepped down as Labour leader. While the mass youth support enjoyed by his successor, Jeremy Corbyn, makes his own “Milifandom” seem rather meek, Miliband has won fresh admirers for his Twitter zings (telling Piers Morgan to pipe down rarely fails). He proved a capable stand-in for Jeremy Vine on Radio 2.

“I thought there was a way of exploring serious ideas without being too po-faced about it,” he says. “My fundamental reasons for thinking it was a good idea: one, is that many people felt disheartened. But second is that the Left has been strong on diagnosis — the country is unequal, unfair, etc — but what are the big answers? And now that space has opened up, partly because of the last election and Jeremy Corbyn doing so much better than anyone expected. There is now a prospect of a progressive government — not at all certain — which means there’s always more of a thirst for ideas.”

“It’s fun going beyond what policy units are saying and look at TED talks or pop economics books,” says Lloyd.

“Think-tanks have a role. But they present ideas in a very particular way: long policy documents, lots of detail and numbers… I hope this gives people access to these ideas without forcing them to read a 100-page document. And also, it’s fun!”

We head up to the attic studio, where Miliband and Lloyd record episode three, hunched under the eaves amid Lloyd’s voluminous collection of Beatles memorabilia. The theme this week is that stubbornly persistent gender pay gap. But we’re here to focus on solutions! Miliband interviews Victoria A Budson, a lawyer from Massachusetts who has led a cross-party initiative that makes it illegal for employers to ask what your previous salary was when you apply for a job. The idea is that women and minorities won’t be forced to carry their low pay from job to job. Then Jess Philips — chair of the Women’s Parliamentary Labour Party — talks forcefully about the issue in a British context. “Winning power is the beginning, middle and end of this,” she concludes. “Wow, you’re good!” says Miliband.

Miliband appears to relish the day-to-day business of broadcasting, performing the cues himself, often letting Lloyd take the lead on policy questions. The pair have an easy rapport. At one point, Lloyd tells a rather sad story about a school trip and Miliband seems genuinely upset. And when listening to all suggestions, from legalistic policy to redressing corporate excess to replacing all cars with balloon cars, both have an amazing ability to be really enthusiastic (“That’s an amazing idea!”) and then come up with a real-world parallel (“Well, they’re beginning to do something like this in Paris...”)

Ed Miliband and his co-host Geoff Lloyd

During one break, Lloyd marvels at how rarely anyone saw this Miliband when he was Labour leader. “The way that you are when you’re allowed to be yourself is very different from when you’re, say, being interviewed by Jeremy Paxman. You’re never given the breathing space.”

“I don’t know… It’s hard to fathom the reason for it,” says Miliband. “I think some of it is self-imposed. Some people in those positions are better at shedding those constraints than I was. Some of it just comes with the position. You’re the leader of the Labour Party in a pretty hostile media environment where every word gets picked over and parsed, so it tends to make you more constrained.”

He has a degree of sympathy for Theresa May’s recent conference trauma. “I had a number of things happen to me, but the letters falling off? Gordon Brown once had a pigeon fly into the hall when he was doing his party speech. The people who worked for him were incredibly worried the pigeon would do its droppings on him while the speech was going on.”

It shows that when the momentum isn’t with you it’s almost impossible to change it. “Dominant narrative is so overwhelming in politics. The smallest gaffe when the momentum is against you is a disaster. But when it is with you, everyone just ignores it.”

“I think this is why politicians do reality TV,” says Lloyd. “They get it into their heads: ‘If only people could see the REAL me, they’d love me!’”

“Are you saying this is my version of reality TV? If this is my Strictly Come Dancing, what does that make you?” Bantz!

The podcast format seems a much more conducive medium. It’s a bit like the bicycle of the social-media landscape. It’s not quite as whizzy or new as Snapchat or Facebook Live. But it seems like a much more wholesome way of navigating an information landscape dominated by flame wars and fake news. “That was part of the thinking,” says Lloyd. “If I wake up for a wee in the middle of the night, I’ll check Twitter. I think it has helped make me deeply depressed about the state of the world.” He’s also frustrated at the false balance you often find when debates are staged in the traditional media. “Katie Hopkins, who has these extreme views, will be put on to balance things out, but she makes the debate completely unbalanced.”

And the best podcasts feed a hunger for ideas. Miliband was buoyed by the “vibrancy” he encountered at the recent Labour Party conference. “There was an event called the World Transformed, which was set up by Momentum, and people from across the political spectrum have had to tip their hat to it. It’s vibrant, with interesting discussions and ideas. That’s why it’s such an interesting political moment. Post-1945, the mid-Seventies, and now — these represent ideological moments when the world tilts a bit. That’s what the Tories were grappling with at their conference. Do you defend free markets, or do you reform them? It’s the same issue that Labour had in the mid-Seventies and it’s the same issue the Tories had after 1945. How do you interact with this new ideological term?”

Does he consider himself a centrist? “No, I don’t. I think people sense the world needs to be different. They want big change. And the question is, can you channel that into what I would call progressive purposes. I think this is the opportunity that’s been created since the election. Jeremy Corbyn has opened up a lot of space. And I see it as my responsibility to help to build on that platform with ideas.”