Hello and welcome to Inside Briefing, the podcast from the Institute for Government.

I'm Emma Norris, our director of research, and I'm this week's stand-in presenter whilst Brongwen is away.

Boris Johnson broke COVID laws. He's been

fined by the police, but he's apologised unreservedly. Is that enough as the Prime Minister tries to

move on from the Partygate row? We'll be weighing up his response and how Parliament can and

sometimes cannot hold politicians to account. Given that the government wants to knock stories about parties

and police fines off the front pages, cynics might raise an eyebrow at the timing of its

announcement of hard-hitting headline-grabbing policy on asylum seekers. But does its much-criticised

plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda stack up, we're going to be taking a look.

Cynics might also raise an eyebrow at the timing of another attack on civil servants who are

choosing to work from home.

But does the government have a point?

To discuss all of this and more, I'm joined by an expert duo of IFG senior fellows,

Jill Rutter and Kath Haddon.

Hi, guys.

Hi, Emma.

And I'm delighted to be joined today by Paul War,

chief political commentator at the Ipaper and the godfather of the Daily Politics newsletter.

Hi, Paul. That's very kind of you. Thanks very much, Emma. Okay, so let's start with that apology. In a statement to the Commons, which combined an

apology for being fined by the police with a rundown of his trip to Ukraine, Boris Johnson

tried yet again to draw a line under Partygate and convince his party that there are bigger things

for them to worry about. Paul, you wrote a great column about the Prime Minister's performance.

...