Welcome to Red Lines. It's our Christmas 2021 review of the year and the 100th edition of the podcast rolled into one.

We're in festive spirit here in Studio 1 in Broadcasting House, though you'll not find even a paper cup of wine nor a crumb of cheese in sight.

This is absolutely definitely not a party. We are spread out in a very large television studio, in fact, keeping our distance

from each other and looking forward to reflecting on yet another remarkable year. Joining me to do

that, a colleague who's had a ringside seat for a great deal of the drama of the past 12 months,

our political correspondent, Gareth Gordon, also with me the celebrated commentating double act

that is Deirdre Heenan and Newton Emerson

and making his Red Lines debut and not before time, the comedian and actor Tim McGarry.

So welcome to you all. Happy Christmas, if it's still okay to wish people a happy Christmas

under the circumstances, I'm not too sure. Tim, is it right that we booked you a week ago?

We went back to confirm yesterday and you'd forgotten about it. Yeah, is it right that we booked you a week ago? We went back to confirm

yesterday and you'd forgotten about it. Yeah, can we also confirm that I'm getting a fee for this?

Because this could affect how this conversation goes for the next 45 minutes. It might be a smaller

fee than you're used to because the budget for Red Lines is modest. Has Nolan taken everything

again? Oh, for goodness sake. Newton, Newton, you're smiling, but I think

you'd maybe also forgotten about it? Yes, Christmas scheduling does tend to go a bit rye in our

house. Sorry about that. Well, that's extra points, if we were rewarding points, to Deirdre and

Garth, for not forgetting at this stage. Look, we've got a lot of ground to cover. So let's just dive in with an issue that's dominated the agenda all year

and that remains unresult and that is of course the Northern Ireland protocol. And of course,

Garret, Boris Johnson lost one of his most loyal protocol left tenants just a couple of days ago. Lord

Frost threw in the towel at the weekend that we didn't mention the protocol itself or Northern Ireland

in his letter of resignation, of course.

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