Why Boris is the least of Rishi's problems
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 16 June 2023
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Boris Johnson has dominated the headlines this week. But, peek behind the bluster and noise, and the country has far bigger fish to fry. The question is whether Rishi Sunak's government, his five point plan, is more sashimi than seared.
Boris Johnson distracts everybody. He's hard to avoid. But there's a cost- we ignore what is really driving our politics and voters. The truth is, when you dig down into the problems Rishi Sunak himself identified, many are worsening. In this episode, we go beyond the Boris Johnson roadshow and examine the big structural forces driving British politics which largely explain why Sunak can't seem to shift the polls.
Meanwhile, Emily has turned up at a tech conference, which will amuse anyone who has ever watched her try and work out how to use her iPad. Aside from trying to get tech support she's been talking to tech entrepreneur Euan Blair (yes, of the Blair's).
And we get an update on a tragedy in the Med with C4 News Foreign Correspondent, Secunder Kermani.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.3 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:24.1 | Hi folks, Boris Johnson here. I am thrilled to be asked to contribute a column to the Daily Mail. |
| 0:27.6 | It is going to be completely unexpigated stuff. |
| 0:30.7 | I may even have to cover politics, but I'll obviously try to do that as little as possible, |
| 0:35.3 | unless I absolutely have to. I'm much looking |
| 0:37.9 | forward to making my first contribution to those illustrious pages on Saturday. Join me in the |
| 0:44.0 | Daily Mail on Saturday. As sure as nice follows day. As we said on Thursday's show, Boris Johnson |
| 0:49.5 | has miraculously ended up with a column in the Daily Mail, where he will doubtless lob political |
| 0:55.2 | hand grenade on a weekly basis as far into the bunker of Rishi Sunak's number 10 as possible. |
| 1:01.7 | Week after week of late, Boris Johnson, and what we charitably call a psychodrama, has exerted |
| 1:08.0 | an inescapable gravitational pull on our politics on the Conservative Party. |
| 1:13.5 | There will be yet more to come on Monday as the Commons considers what to do about the |
| 1:18.2 | privileges report. Britain seems destined, aided by his media allies to exist in a Boris Johnson |
| 1:24.9 | orbit for some time yet. Like Trump, the story is just too good for too many, |
| 1:30.4 | including, let's be honest, sometimes ourselves, to resist. But sometimes we should resist, |
| 1:36.4 | and today we are, because there is a cost to Johnson mania, to Johnson obsession. It is to |
| 1:41.6 | ignore all of the things which are sucked in and crushed in his wake. |
| 1:46.2 | It is to think that Sunak's main problems are Johnson related and they're not. So on today's show, |
| 1:52.6 | the big forces which are really but quietly driving our politics, the things you may have missed |
| 1:58.2 | and why Boris Johnson is in fact the least of Rishi-Soonak's problems. |
| 2:03.2 | It's Lewis here. Welcome to the newsagents. |
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