Not another one. Welcome to the podcast where we pay tribute to Brenda of Bristol's famous catchphrase.

And today, I'm Tim Montgomery, by the way, the studio in London.

And I'm joined down the line by Steve Richards.

Hello, Steve.

Hi, Tim. How are you?

I'm very well.

And I think we are better than Miranda, aren't we?

Who, poor thing, has been struck down by COVID. So, she's not, it's like, it's like old times, isn't it? It's getting text and I've got COVID. It is. We shouldn't laugh. No. I hope before, when you're listening to this, Miranda, we send you our love, as we've already done. Yeah, and I hope you're okay, Miranda.

I know she'll listen, and it will probably make her feel even more ill.

No, no.

I hope you contribute to her recovery.

Exactly.

And Ian is still just, you know, smoking a Gitton with a glass of chilled white wine somewhere in Italy, isn't he?

I think going in, it will probably be a glass of Kianti or something actually. Yes, it will. Yeah. It'll be well chosen if Ian's drinking wine. It will be very well chosen. They probably don't have co-ops in them. Well, they don't have the co-op in Italy. He's such a huge fan of co-op wine, isn't it? He is, yeah.

Anyway, we should get down to business because there's only two of us and so we have less chit-chat.

But my goodness, you must have had a busy few days. The last time we met was just in the after, a lot of time we talked was in the aftermath of the um the reshuffle

and um angela rena's resignation but of course we've had the whole peter mandelson business since yeah

can i ask you the big question first of all uh steve before we get into some of the detail but

how much trouble do you think the government's in?

Oh, a lot, a huge amount.

And I'm getting texts from cabinet ministers who are, you know, would be broadly described in that cliche as loyal to Kea Stama, just saying I'm in

despair at the moment. That was why I got last night from a very insightful minister. And they

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