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Inside Briefing with the Institute for Government

Institute for Government

News, Politics, Government

4.6 • 252 Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2022

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Boris Johnson makes an uncharacteristic apology to the House for No.10’s lockdown garden party – but is the PM reaching for a narrow legalistic self-justification when the court of public opinion has already passed its verdict? What can the Sue Grey Report uncover about the culture of Downing Street? And will anyone carry the can for this apparent breach of the COVID rules? Our special guest in a seismic week in Westminster is the Evening Standard’s political editor David Bond. “The mood in PMQs was absolutely extraordinary… We saw a very different Boris Johnson from the one we’ve become use to. He looked broken.” – DAVID BOND “It’s not just legal jeopardy that Johnson is in. Has he lied to the House?” – HANNAH WHITE “Compared to the massive support you usually see for the Prime Minister at PMQs this was a very, very different spectacle.” – DAVID BOND “There’s a wide expectation that Sue Grey will be able to pass judgment on the Prime Minister – but that’s not actually her job.” – TIM DURRANT “There is nothing in Boris Johnson’s past which suggests he is going to be a crusader for tougher rules…” – DAVID BOND Presented by Bronwen Maddox with Tim Durrant and Hannah White. Audio production by Alex Rees. Inside Briefing is a Podmasters Production for the IfG. www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Winside Briefing, the podcast from the Institute for Government.
0:15.0	I'm Bronwyn Maddox. For the government's frustration to Boris Johnson's dismay,
0:20.0	there is only one story in Westminster right now, and it's burst right out of the Westminster bubble.
0:25.5	It's about that party, or those parties, who attended them, who knew about them, and crucially, what the Prime Minister knew about them.
0:32.8	Yesterday in the Commons, in one of the most highly charged Prime Minister's question sessions for a long time,
0:42.6	Johnson apologised for being present at the May 20th gathering in the Downing Street Garden and said he took full responsibility, but insisted that he believed it was a work event.
0:47.1	So is that going to be enough for Sue Gray, the senior civil servant leading the investigation
0:51.1	into party gate? Is it going to be enough for Tory MPs, furious at
0:55.3	number 10's handling of a story that seems to gather momentum with each week? And is it going to be
1:00.2	enough for voters, for whom May was a time of tight lockdown and personal sacrifice? Joining us
1:07.5	at this searing time in British politics, our two IFG experts, our deputy director
1:12.0	Hannah White. Hi, Hannah. Hello. And our associate director, Tim Duren. Hi, Tim. Hi,
1:18.0	great to get back. Great to have you both with us. And I'm delighted to be joined as well
1:22.0	in the virtual studio, as it still is, for this inside briefing debut by David Bond, the deputy political editor at
1:29.9	the Evening Standard. Hi, David, great to have you with us. Great to be with you.
1:33.9	Very conscious of evening standard deadlines, which are rather different from the other newspapers.
1:39.3	I'm particular thanks for that. Let's start in a discussion that is going to be many, many sides of a discussion
1:46.2	about standards. Let's start with that party. David, these reports have been accompanied by
1:52.7	an outpouring of stories of people, not being able to say goodbye to loved ones who died at the
1:57.4	height of lockdown. What was the mood like in Prime Minister's questions yesterday?
2:01.9	Well, it was absolutely extraordinary. The first thing to say is that the House was absolutely
2:05.4	packed, not just with MPs, but also members of the lobby, the journalists, who I look around
	...

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