Hello and welcome to Inside Briefing, the podcast from the Institute for Government. I'm Hannah White.

That old saying, about a week being a long time in politics? Well, Rishi-Soonak's rain-soaked speech on the steps of number 10 certainly feels a long time ago already.

We've had policy announcements, gaffes, MPs stepping down, a spectacular fool from a paddleboard, more MPs stepping down, Kirstama colliding with the Labour left, Rishi Sunak, clashing with some of his ministers, Nigel Farrow is deciding not to stand for Parliament again,

but nonetheless, being rather present. A lot has happened. So let's try and make sense of where

we are after week one of the general election campaign. I'm joined today by Alex Thomas and Jill Rutter,

both IFG stalwarts. Hi both. Hi, Hannah. Hi, Hannah. Alex, let's turn first to some of the

announcements we've heard this

week. What do you make about the idea that this election was called because Sunak felt people

weren't listening to his policy announcements in peacetime, but that they might in the heat of an election

campaign. Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? If, you know, if that was one of his intentions,

then he's probably been vindicated to some extent because quite a few of these, you know, if that was one of his intentions, then he's probably been vindicated to some extent

because quite a few of these, you know, the announcements that have dominated the first week of the

campaign are the conservative ones rather than the sort of Labor positioning, even as the coverage

as we move into the election period is sort of, you know, more balanced. I would be surprised if that

was the main reason that

Rishi Sunat called the election. I think he will have been more focused on particularly

the threat from Reform UK. And again, you could say that he had some success in shooting their

Fox by moving early. And that may be behind Nigel Farage's decision not to stand as a candidate.

I also think he will have been thinking about the kind of rhythm of the year ahead

and what the rest of the year was going to look like and whether the Conservatives would be ahead in the polls.

Also an intriguing suggestion.

We're recording this on Friday morning last night in a spectator column,

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