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

I'm Bronwyn Maddox. And then there were two, Rishi Sunak, Viz Truss, former chancellor and current

foreign secretary, they're

going to battle it out over the summer in the contest to become the next leader of the

Conservative Party and so the next Prime Minister.

So they're going to be hustings, interviews, adverts, promotional videos, embarrassing videos,

no doubt, and lots more as they try to win the votes of around 200,000 Conservative Party members,

or maybe fewer, a system for electing prime ministers, which is not exactly ideal, I have argued.

And what about the man they're going to succeed?

Boris Johnson has chalked up three years as prime minister.

He seemed to hint the job is not quite yet done, so could he make a comeback? I'm joined

today to discuss all this by two IFG senior fellows who are no doubt watching all this very closely.

Kath Haddon leads our minister's work and I'll work on changes of government. Kath, quiet summer.

Yeah, quite a bit to get done before the new government is formed in September, but it's all fascinating watching at the moment.

It is, and Giles Wilkes has witness number 10 under two of Johnson's predecessors, including during the dying days of a caretaker government.

Giles, do you feel for the people there now?

I have no sympathy whatsoever. It's lovely being inside there,

and they should just be trying to work away on policies for the national interest until the very

last minute. Thank you very much. I'm all for clear opinions. And so I'm delighted as well

that our guest is someone who really knows how the Conservative Party thinks, as well as how

number 10 works. And that's Mo Hussain, former

chief press officer at number 10, a special advisor to Amber Rudd, and soon to be joining

...