Dog Fights and Defections

Inside Briefing with the Institute for Government

Institute for Government

News, Politics, Government

4.6 • 252 Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2022

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A Red Wall MP has defected to Labour, and David David has publicly called for the PM to go. But we’re still waiting for Sue Gray’s report, and Boris Johnson is still Prime Minister. LBC’s IAIN DALE joins us to discuss the past few days in Parliament, and the bigger questions about what could come next. “The way that Boris Johnson has diminished the office, if he left in the next few months he would go down in the bottom quartile of PMs.” - IAIN DALE “Calling it operation ‘save big dog’ also invites other names like ‘Dead Dog’ or ‘Dog’s Dinner’.” - IAIN DALE “Number 10 in particular, the tone is really set by the Prime Minister.” - ALEX THOMAS “It is going to come down to Conservative MPs holding their leader to account. Parliament can’t do that.” - CATH HADDON “A lot of people in 2019 voted Conservative for the first time because of Boris Johnson. He’s lost their trust.” - IAIN DALE Presented by Bronwen Maddox with Cath Haddon and Alex Thomas. Audio production by Alex Rees. Inside Briefing is a Podmasters Production for the IfG. https://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 Inside Briefing, the podcast from the Institute for Government. I'm Bronwyn Maddox.
0:16.4	Well, the mood in Westminster is, this word is a favourite of all lobby journalists, feebrile.
0:25.6	Things are moving fast. We're recording this at midday on Thursday, and right now we can say that Sue Gray has not yet published a report into Downing Street's parties. Not enough Conservative
0:30.6	MPs have sent in letters calling for a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister, and Boris
0:35.5	Johnson is still Prime Minister.
0:40.4	Who knows where we'll be next week or even at the end of this podcast.
0:45.4	But to make sense of where we are right now, where things might go and to think about some of the bigger questions as well, I've got two brilliant IFG colleagues with me in the virtual
0:49.9	studio.
0:51.1	Senior fellow, Kath Hadden, hi Kath.
0:53.1	Hi, Kath.
0:55.8	Hi, Bronwyn. Program Director, Alex Thomas. Hi, Alex. Hi, Abramyn. And I'm really delighted to be joined as well by someone who understands
1:01.3	the workings of the Conservative Party and the job of Prime Minister better than most. And that's
1:06.1	LBC presenter, podcaster, pundit and author Ian Dale. Hi. Hello. Hi. Thanks for finding time in this
1:13.0	busy week to join us. Well it couldn't be busier really, could it? You just never know what's
1:18.7	going to happen from one minute to the next. It couldn't really. Let's start with what we're calling
1:24.6	party time and take stock of what's going on right now. We've had
1:29.7	just this week a recently elected Conservative MP affecting to labour, far more experienced one. David
1:35.2	Davis told Boris Johnson to resign, but we're still waiting for Sue Gray's report. So,
1:39.8	Kath, take us through the mechanics, what's going on and what comes next? Well, we are, as you say,
1:45.1	the famous phrase now, waiting for Sue Gray. It looks like after the sort of heat of Tuesday
1:50.8	and Wednesday that the Conservative Party has decided to wait and see what her report says
1:56.5	before taking any action. And beyond that, we don't really know. You hear rumors and so forth.
	...

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