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Hello and welcome to a special Saturday edition of Coffee House Shots. I'm Katie Balls

and I'm joined by James Seythe and James Johnson of JL Partners and we are talking about the aftermath of the North Stropshire by-election.

Over the past months, there have been increasing doubts about Boris Johnson's ability to stay in

post. Many don't think anything's about to happen overnight. But it's certainly the case

that in the past month, talk of who might lead the party into

the next election has increased and the bookies now are in favour of Boris Johnson leaving

in the next year. James was like, before we get onto who in this scenario might be a contender

if we do end up in a Tory leadership race. How perilous are

things of Boris Johnson, he's been written off in the past and come back stronger?

I think the big test for him is the May local elections coming up next year. I think at the

moment he is protected by the fact that, you know, I was talking to one of Boris Johnson's most

kind of ardent critics earlier today. And they were saying, look, you know, I was talking to one of Boris Johnson's most kind of ardent critics earlier

today. And they were saying, look, you know, you can't possibly regard now with a record number of

COVID cases as in anything like a sensible time to be thinking about a vote of no confidence in

the prime minister by his own party. So I think that does provide him with some protection.

But then I think that these May elections, which are on seats largely last fought in 2018,

when the result was essentially, if you do that projected national vote share thing,

showed Labour and the Tories roughly level pegging, you know, if the Tory's got considerably

worse results than they got in 2018, then I think there would be a problem for them. And I think

...