How did Boris misjudge the Paterson backlash?
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 5 November 2021
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On the podcast, James says: 'It was really obvious how the press, the public, the opposition, were going to react to the Tory party trying to upend the standards rules and stay a guilty verdict against one of their own MPs. This is not an unexpected reaction to that kind of action.'
The team also talk about the resignation of Yorkshire Cricket Club Chairman Roger Hutton, who quit after the club's board refused to accept racism allegations from former player Azeem Rafiq. Isabel says: 'There's a cut-through between politics and cricket here. You have these cultures of people who are not prepared to have their behaviour questioned, who are not prepared to have their institution questioned.'
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This podcast is sponsored by Canacord Genuity Wealth Management, award-winning wealth managers who go above and beyond to support and guide you. |
| 0:09.3 | Visit can-dowealth.com to start building your wealth with confidence. |
| 0:17.8 | Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectators' Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Katie Balls, and I'm joined by Isabel Hardman and James Forsyfe. |
| 0:26.0 | So the Owen Patterson Rower rumbles on. The MP has now quit the comments, and that means we're heading towards a by-election in what is well regarded as a Tory safe seat. |
| 0:37.4 | But it isn't the end of the matter. |
| 0:39.4 | There's a blame game playing out in Westminster right now as to have exactly Boris Johnson got |
| 0:43.9 | himself into the position where he's received some worst headlines really for months, if not years. |
| 0:50.2 | And if one poll is to be believed, the Tory leader is starting to drop as well as a result. |
| 0:55.7 | James, where is the blame gamer? |
| 0:57.8 | It seems like Mark Spencer is the person to get most annoyed at when it comes to the various briefings. |
| 1:03.8 | So Tory MPs are furious at everybody. |
| 1:06.9 | Boris Johnson, number 10, Mark Spencer, Jacob Breastise Mogg, Owen Patterson, you name it. |
| 1:13.2 | I think if you read the papers today, it's quite clear that the Chief Whip is particularly in the line of fire. |
| 1:19.1 | I think among some of Boris Johnson's closest political allies, there is an irritation that they were never told that only 252 Tory MPs were going to vote for it. |
| 1:29.0 | They say that this was kind of failure of intelligence. |
| 1:31.0 | They weren't told that how the parliamentary party was not enthusiastic about this idea. |
| 1:36.6 | But I think you can't get around the fact that regardless of how many Tory MPs trope through the lobby to vote for this thing, |
| 1:42.2 | it was clearly a very bad idea. And, you know, |
| 1:45.8 | sometimes political issues flare up from nowhere. It was really obvious, I think, how the press, |
| 1:51.8 | the public, the opposition were going to react to the Tory party trying to upend the standards |
| 1:56.9 | rules and stay a guilty verdict against one of her own MPs. This is not an unexpected |
| 2:02.0 | reaction to that kind of action. And so I think no one can really escape the blame for the trouble |
... |
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