Sunk! Is Sunak’s Tory Party over?
Radical with Amol Rajan
BBC
4.5 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 7 December 2023
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s been a bruising 24 hours for Rishi Sunak including a ministerial resignation, emergency prime ministerial press conference and a former home secretary now firmly on manoeuvres.
Amol and Nick discuss the Today programme’s exclusive interview with that former home secretary, Suella Braverman, and analyse how much trouble Sunak is now in. Will there be a leadership challenge?
As he’s shoring up his leadership the former prime minister Boris Johnson is trying to secure his legacy at the Covid Inquiry. What will history’s verdict on him be? Sir Simon Schama provides his perspective on how Johnson’s time in No10 will be remembered, long into the future.
Episodes of The Today Podcast land every Thursday and watch out for bonus episodes. Subscribe on BBC Sounds to get Amol and Nick's take on the biggest stories of the week, with insights from behind the scenes at the UK's most influential radio news programme.
If you would like a question answering, get in touch by sending us a message or voice note via WhatsApp to +44 330 123 4346 or email us Today@bbc.co.uk
The Today Podcast is hosted by Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson, both presenters of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the UK’s most influential radio news programme. Amol was the BBC’s media editor for six years and is the former editor of the Independent, he’s also the current presenter of University Challenge. Nick has presented the Today programme since 2015, he was the BBC’s political editor for ten years before that and also previously worked as ITV’s political editor.
The senior producer is Tom Smithard, the producer is Rufus Gray. The editors are Jonathan Aspinwall and Louisa Lewis. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths. Studio direction from Jack Graysmark.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:04.7 | Okay, Nick, we've not long been off air, and it's been a lively morning. |
| 0:08.4 | We had a Robinson special where you interviewed Suella Brabman, the former Home Secretary, and it was quite an encounter. |
| 0:13.6 | I've been trying to get that interview for weeks because I wanted to do the interview about the letter she wrote after she was sacked. |
| 0:20.5 | What I never realised is that the interview |
| 0:22.3 | would come after Rishi Sunax friend, his ally, the person he put into the home office to keep an |
| 0:29.1 | eye on, to spy on Svalorne Brubman, actually quit saying his policies wouldn't work. It changed |
| 0:36.6 | what that interview was going to be about. But the |
| 0:39.1 | fascinating thing was though I asked her again and again and again whether she would back |
| 0:45.4 | Sunak, she couldn't bring herself to do it without adding some words about if he does this and |
| 0:50.4 | if he does that, if he, in other words, agrees with me. And the Prime Minister clearly thinks he's |
| 0:53.8 | in trouble because he's just done a press conference. We're going to react to that, try and make sense of what he's actually said. We're going to get into the policy of migration, why it's causing so much trouble, and the politics. What this means for Rishishisonek and how he can get a grip of his very recalcitrant colleagues. As the Prime Minister is trying to rescue his premiership, |
| 1:12.9 | the man whose fall ensured that he is now Prime Minister, |
| 1:17.1 | Boris Johnson is trying to rescue his reputation. |
| 1:20.3 | And we'll have a word or two to say about how history might judge Boris Johnson |
| 1:25.4 | with a great historian, Professor Simon Sharma. But today we're asking, |
| 1:30.8 | sunk? Is Sunak's Tory party over? Let's do it. |
| 1:49.1 | Welcome back, all you lovely listeners. This is a mole in our makeshift today podcast studio for one more week, |
| 1:53.0 | sitting strangely and intimately close to my friend Nick. |
| 1:57.2 | That is because we're in a temporary studio while the decorators finish off downstairs. |
| 2:02.6 | And in the main today program studio, what a morning. It was, as I said, a Robinson special. |
| 2:07.6 | He came in, he was all nervous, bit uppity at sort of four o'clock in the morning. And at about |
... |
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