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

I'm Hannah White, director of the Institute.

A home secretary under huge pressure, a prime ministerial U-turn and an MP ridiculed for signing up through reality TV show.

It all sounds like politics has returned to normal.

Well, after the tumultuous last few months from Westminster, maybe anything would seem normal.

But Rishi-Soonak's first week as Prime Minister has not been entirely plain sailing.

His home secretary has endured a brutal first week in her new, old job, but so far she's surviving.

The PM still needs to find a lot of money to fill a big fiscal black hole, and what will that mean for civil service job cuts?

And Labour are still far ahead in the polls, but where does the new

Sunat government leave Kirstama and his party? To discuss all this, I'm delighted to be joined

by IFG Pod stalwart and senior fellow, Jill Rutter. Hi, Jill. Hi, Jill. Hi, Hannah. And also joining

us today is senior researcher, Reese Klein. Hi, Reese. Hi, Anna. And I'm delighted to be joined for his

IFG podcast debut by the Mirror's new political editor, John Stevens. Hi, John. Hi, Hannah.

You were at the mail before. How have you found the transition to the Mirror? Well,

it's been quite a change. I was at the Mail for 12 years. So I think if you were anywhere

for that law, and you're quite institutionalised to suddenly

do things quite differently. So yeah, I think it was always going to be pretty quite a change,

but obviously the last few weeks have been made it even more intense. So yeah, it is rather

different from my old job, but very similar in some

ways, but very different in other ways. And first up, I have to ask you about the political

story, which is consuming Westminster, which is, of course, Matt Hancock going into the jungle.

Do you think this could work out for him in the end? I think in Matt Hancock's mind, he thinks

...