Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shops, The Spectator's Political Podcast.

I'm Lara Prendergars and I'm today joined by Jane Forsyth and Katie Balls.

So James, the independent group's been alive and kicking for 24 hours.

How are they faring so far?

I think they've had a relatively good start.

They haven't fallen over their shoelaces yet.

I think also one of the things that you will see here is they've got a fairly positive set of media coverage this morning.

And I think the polling evidence for them now, this is very, very early. I was talking to one pollster this morning, he was kind of questioning whether you can really derive anything meaningful from any polls about them at the moment. But it's not a total flop. And I think that will help them.

And I think the question now becomes, what is the thing that gives them momentum? The obvious thing

is to recruit more MPs to this group, whether it be from the Labour Party or the Tory

party. And I think they do need something to keep them going because they're obviously not

confident enough to go off and fight by elections, which is one obvious way to get publicity.

So we're not going to do that. So they do need something to keep them going. I think there

is also another question which is what is their policy going to be about standing candidates in other contests?

There are going to be some by-elections coming up?

And, you know, are they going to run an MP?

And if so, on what platform do they run?

Katie, are we likely to see any Tory MPs joining them?

Well, rumours are banned that there are a couple who are thinking about it.

That number varies.

I think the two MPs that I think there is a consensus

and they're most likely to move, Sarah Williston and Heidi Allen,

...