By any standards, it has not been a good week for Boris Johnson and his supporters,

though the message after Monday's drama is that he and the government want more than anything

to draw a line under the recent difficulties and move on.

We've heard that a lot over the past 48 hours.

The question is, will it happen or is the Prime Minister,

as some of his critics have dared to suggest a dead man walking?

For this week's Red Lines, we've brought together three experts who know better than most how Westminster

works and what they don't know about the particularities of the Tory party probably isn't worth

knowing. So, welcome to Newsnight's political editor Nick Watt, to the Independence, Whitehall

editor Kate Devlin

and to the Scotland editor of the spectator Alex Massey,

who's also a Times and Sunday Times columnist.

It's good to have you on the podcast.

Nick, first of all, if we take a step back for a moment

and take in the view from the high ground,

how does the turmoil of recent days look to you?

Well, I mean, obviously it was pretty chaotic, and as you say, there was turmoil,

and you could literally physically on Monday see a premiership in peril,

because in the pretty open areas of the parliamentary estate,

you saw the key people from Downing Street in there, on the phone, meeting MPs in huddles.

Normally, you know, there's a big prime ministerial suite of offices in Parliament.

Normally they'd be down there, down that corridor.

...