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Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, The Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast.

I'm Isabel Hardman and I'm joined by Katie Bowles and James Forsyth.

Well, Boris Johnson is in Dublin this morning for Talks with the T-Shok.

And the opening remarks haven't really gone in his favour, James.

Is that a surprise?

No, because part of Boris Johnson's problem is that European leaders look

at him, see a man without anywhere, anything near a parliamentary majority now, the whip having gone

from their 21 Tory rebels. And so they are more prepared to point score and less inclined to compromise

than they otherwise would be. And I also think that Leah Varadka

is obviously slightly playing a no-deal Brexit blame game. He's trying to say, look, don't think

there's any simple way to deal with this. And don't, and his point about there'd be no such

things as a clean Brexit is, you know, trying to suggest that these arguments are going to have

to go on for ages and ages and ages.

I think the interesting question here is what there there is some movement from the UK government,

and I think more interestingly from the DUP, on one bit of the kind of alternative to the backstock,

which is this idea of an all-Ireland SPS zone.

The idea essentially is...

SPS being sanitary and phytosanitry.

So essentially agricultural stuff.

...