Can Rishi Sunak win it for the Tories?
Radical with Amol Rajan
BBC
4.5 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 5 October 2023
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Today Programme’s got the only interview with the prime minister recorded after his conference speech. What sort of a week has it been for Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives? Join Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson as they ask whether Rishi Sunak can lead his party to a 5th electoral victory and give their take on a strange week in politics. Jane Green, professor of politics at Oxford University is in The Today Podcast studio with the latest polling and writer Armando Iannucci joins us to talk about the weirdness of party conferences and that time he nearly got a story on the Today programme. Plus, it’s Nick’s birthday! Episodes land every Thursday. Subscribe to The Today Podcast to get Amol and Nick's take on the biggest stories of the week. With insights from behind the scenes at the UK's most influential radio news programme. Get in touch by sending us a message or voice note via WhatsApp to +44 330 123 4346 or email Today@bbc.co.uk
The Today Podcast is presented by Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson. The producers are Tom Smithard and Stephanie Mitcalf. The editors are Jonathan Aspinwall and Louisa Lewis. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths.
The Today Podcast music is composed by Nick Foster and Paddy Fletcher.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. Nick, you've just interviewed the Prime Minister I was listening in. |
| 0:08.3 | What was he like when he came into the room? Was he a bullion? Was he relieved? Was he excited? |
| 0:12.8 | Because he's just become the latest subscriber to this new podcast. If only. I did ask him, aren't you relieved, thinking he would be? |
| 0:18.9 | Because after all, he'd just done his first big conference speech. |
| 0:22.9 | And he said, well, it would have been, but I've got to talk to you first. |
| 0:27.2 | He knows that that conference, the speech, maybe even the interview we're going to talk about in here. |
| 0:32.4 | We'll help to answer the question. |
| 0:35.2 | Can Rishi Sunak win it for the Tories? |
| 0:37.7 | Let's do it. |
| 0:38.3 | It's a mole here in London. |
| 0:52.3 | And it's Nick in Solford just down the road from Manchester. |
| 0:55.6 | And this is the today podcast where every week we're going to take a big story and we're going |
| 1:00.6 | to dig much deeper into it. And this week we're launching obviously with the subject of the |
| 1:06.2 | Tory party conference because Nick has just been speaking to Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister. We're |
| 1:11.4 | recording this literally moments after that interview finished. And it had a very interesting |
| 1:16.2 | intellectual conceit, which is that after 13 years of conservative power, Rishi Sunak was |
| 1:22.0 | casting himself as the change agent. It's one hell of a trick to try and put off. |
| 1:27.6 | Thanks for having me, Nick. My message is simple. I've been prime minister for less than a year |
| 1:32.1 | and I want to change our country. And that means... But it's a trick that has been pulled off. |
| 1:36.6 | It's a trick that's been pulled off by a Tory before. John Major. Remember, when Margaret |
| 1:41.3 | Thatcher had won three big elections, people said the same sort of thing. |
| 1:46.3 | But John Major came along. He was able to say he was a different sort of Tory. He was able to say, |
... |
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