One Hell of a Kicking for Boris Johnson

Inside Briefing with the Institute for Government

Institute for Government

News, Politics, Government

4.6 • 252 Ratings

🗓️ 17 December 2021

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A seismic North Shropshire by-election result rocks the Johnson government, handing a seat that’s been almost exclusively Conservative for 200 years to the Lib Dems. Can the Prime Minister put an end to his scandals and self-inflicted troubles – or are we looking at the beginning of the end for Boris Johnson? Plus, scientific advice from Chris Whitty and SAGE falls out of sync with No.10’s messaging. Is the Government really at war with its scientists? And if Plan B was so hard to get through, what are the chances for Plan C? Our special guest is JACK BLANCHARD of Politico. “There’s no two ways about it. Boris Johnson took a hell of a kicking last night.” – JACK BLANCHARD “What’s most worrying for the Tories is the ghost of the mid-90s when voters got a taste for finding ways to vote them out.” – GILES WILKES “The party story has cut through like nothing since Barnard Castle.” – JACK BLANCHARD “It doesn’t feel like Boris Johnson can get through the next few months without putting his foot in it… and getting into a Gordon Brown Death Spiral.” – JACK BLANCHARD Presented by Hannah White with Cath Haddon and Giles Wilkes. Audio production by Robin Leeburn. Inside Briefing is a Podmasters Production for the IfG. 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 Hannah White,
0:17.6	IFG's Deputy Director and this week's Deputy Podcast presenter.
0:29.2	Well, it's the morning after the by-election the night before, and Boris Johnson will have woken up with one hell of a hangover, and there wasn't a party in sight.
0:36.6	The Lib Dems have won the Northropshire by-election and overturned a massive Conservative majority in the seat that has only ever been Conservative.
0:38.4	We'll take a look at what it all means. That result followed a huge Tory rebellion in the seat that has only ever been conservative, we'll take a look at what it all means.
0:44.0	That result followed a huge Tory rebellion in the Commons against the Prime Minister's attempts to bring in tighter,
0:49.8	but not that tight, COVID restrictions. So how serious is all this for the Prime Minister? What's going on in the Conservative Party? Is a leadership challenge really on the cards? And sadly, there is no
0:55.7	getting away from COVID, quite literally judging by the number of cases out there. The Omicron
1:00.6	variant is racing through the land. The government is ramping up the booster campaign. Plan B has
1:05.2	kicked in and will Plan C follow? We all wish we didn't have to, but we're going to be talking
1:09.7	COVID yet again. Joining me, not in person have to, but we're going to be talking COVID yet again.
1:17.0	Joining me, not in person, of course, are a pair of top 5G senior fellows, Catherine Haddon and Giles Wilkes. Hi both. Hello. Hello, Hannah. And I'm delighted to be joined today by
1:21.8	Jack Bancard, Politico's UK political editor. Hi, Jack. Hello, how you doing? I'm right. You used to write the morning
1:28.7	playbook email. How bad was that after a by-election? It was brilliant. Oh, no, it was great,
1:33.7	because if you're writing an morning email that comes out at 7 o'clock in the morning, the very best thing is
1:38.5	some big breaking news at 4 a.m. because you can be the person that tells Westminster all about it when they wake up.
1:44.6	So I used to love it. Although I'm not sure in the three years I did it, we ever had a
1:48.5	by-election quite like this one. No, well, we'll have a chance to talk about it all in a minute.
1:53.4	We'll begin in North Shropshire, where the Liberal Democrats secured a substantial win
1:57.3	and inflicted a bruising defeat on the Tories. So how bad is this for Boris Johnson, Jack?
2:03.3	That's terrible. It's absolutely terrible.
2:05.1	I mean, you know, we've seen by-election upsets before this year, of course,
	...

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