Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, The Spectators Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Patrick Gibbons, and today I'm joined by James Hill and Luke Trail of More in Common.

So James, quite a dramatic day of events in Westminster City yesterday, which was rounded off by Stama doing a speech to the parliamentary Labour Party last night that I believe was quite well

received? Yes, it was. I was outside that room. The speech went on for more than an hour.

Several honourable members emerged fanning their faces, such was the heat of the occasion, a testament

not just to the political drama, but also to the sheer numbers crammed into that. Standing room

only. The Prime Minister, like some mafioso, wanted to have his cabinet around in there showing support. And really, it went down pretty well. I mean, the line that everyone was talking about afterwards was that there were 44 interventions. All but four of those were positive. And I think broadly seemed to have gone down pretty well. The speech he made, he quite personalised it. He talked about, you know, I've always fought for everything in my life and never lost a fight thus far, talking about mistakes have been made, but he wanted to keep on fighting and turning the corner, talking about things like child poverty, and really sort of adding a moral mission to what he's doing in government. This, of course, after a day of hydrama, I think there were two main events happened, one of which was Anasawa coming out at 2.30 and saying Kirsteumnees to go, but then, of course, not being followed by anyone else, which sort of left him high and dry. The other thing which is interesting was Wes Streeting, deciding to release all his texts with Peter Mandelson. We understand these were up to six months before his appointment as ambassador. This is supposedly talks about all the sort of text between the two of them, although not, of course, in WhatsApp groups, which may be more. And this is, I think, quite a move that's raised eyebrows among some ministers. You know, when I was speaking to this morning, just said, you know, it looks like he's trying to get all his ducks in a row. And I think that sort of does seem, seem to sum it up.

There's some two sort of particularly interesting messages, one of which is when he just admits to Peter

Manelson, the government has no growth plan. As Michael Simmons would probably say, Kelton, please, if he were here. The second point was that, you know, he admits he's going to lose his seat the next election, which I think any electoral strategist could probably tell you that.

But the result of that has been that now the Metropolitan Police has come out and said,

please stop releasing these messages that need to be. next election, which I think any electoral strategist could probably tell you that. But the result of that

has been that allowed the Metropolitan Police come out and said, please stop releasing these messages. They need to be done. They might prejudice investigation, et cetera, or jeopardize it into Mandelson, what's going on. So I think that that's an interesting kind of thing in the context of people positioning themselves in the event of Starmat does going. At the moment, it seems to have study the ship. And obviously after we recorded yesterday's episode, we had Tim Allen going

Dexterate. Yeah. themselves in the event of Starboard does going. At the moment, it seems to have studied the ship. And obviously, after we recorded yesterday's episode, we had Tim Allen going, Debtraud's Strategic Communications. He then put up a WhatsApp photo which said gone golfing, which I think caused some irritation among some number 10 staff. But really, we're now waiting to see, will anyone else go? At the moment we don't see any ministers seem imminent to go,

so it's just Anasawa out there. But really, the Prime Minister is carrying on, stumbling on, but I think there is less immediate danger than there was around lunchtime yesterday. Just on Anasawa, you know, he's sort of stuck his head up above the parapet. Is that one eye on May thinking he's got nothing to lose? Yeah, I mean, he can read a poll like any of us.

He is there in Holyrood and you've got to remember how much these people are affected by

those around them. They're looking at the fact that an election which 18 months ago they were going to

win on polls, they've now potentially coming third behind reform. They want to look strong. They want to try and save the jobs. And I do think there is a sense, talking to some people around Holyrood, is that, you know, everyone in London's been, oh, we've got three years, we can turn it around. Well, they're down three years. They've got three months. And so I think he wants to look strong. One wonders, and I have no proof of this, if he was sort of led up the garden path by some

people in Parliament going, oh yes, you go on Alice, you do this speech and then others will

pile in.

And so it's been quite striking the sort of mood thereafter.

I have to say, I think number 10 performed a pretty good rearguard operation.

After Sawyer gave his comments, all the cabinet then came out and issued members, statements of support. I recall the days of the Tories doing this during the whole Barnar Castle row, as a scene of loyalty, etc. Right now, there doesn't seem any ministers about to jump. So I think they probably played that as well as they could have done in number 10. It was striking that there were, I don't think there were no ministers, not even a junior minister that came out to, to criticise Stama. Yeah, I think you can count still the number of MPs of call for Stammer to go on one hand thereabouts. And this is what striking is that I think Stephen Bush and the FT put this really well this morning talking about, you know, the cabinet looked into the Abyss and the abyss said back, do you really want to take your chances with one of these guys and keep your jobs? Do you think I'm going to keep them in the cabinet?

and went, oh, actually not.

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