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Hello and welcome to you, Coffee House Shots, The Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Isabel Hardman and I'm joined by Katie Balls and James Forsyth. Well, the government has just U-turned, quicker than we

expected, perhaps, but not entirely surprising that it's had to go back on its position on Owen Patterson

and its decision to allow Tory MPs to mark their own homework by scrapping the Standards Committee

and trying to replace it with a new one which given Labour and other parties were going to boycott

would have just been staffed with Conservative MPs examining breaches of the MP's code. James, this

U-turn was inevitable. So why on earth did the government go through with the rigmarole yesterday

of having this vote whipped in Owen Patterson's favour? I think this is the question, lots of very angry Tory MPs and ministers are asking this morning.

I think this actually was an example of Parliament having an effect.

I think that Tory MPs maybe weren't enthusiastic about it, but thought this was doable.

And I think they sat through that debate, that very effective speech by Chris Bryant at the end,

and I think realized that it really wasn't. I think that, you know, I'm told that the mood in the

Tory voting lobby was phenomenally grim, you know, someone said to me that, you know, only about

12 people seemed like they actually wanted to be there. And I think what Tory MPs were telling

themselves, rather delusional, was, well, maybe this won't cut through, maybe the public won't notice.. And I think what Tory MPs were telling themselves rather delusionally was, well, maybe

this won't cut through, maybe the public won't notice. And then I think their email inboxes

started to explode. And then the front pages dropped. And I think it became quite clear that this

story was in that horrible phrase, cutting through, was causing real problems of the public, and they had to U-turn.

I think the question was how they could do it.

And in the end, they have just basically

gone to essentially reverse everything that happened yesterday,

...