0:02

I'm flying solo today in my little

0:04

pod booth in London. Jess,

0:06

where are you? I

0:08

am in Birmingham and this is literally

0:10

where I am is my bedroom, the

0:13

dressing room part of my bedroom because I'm very

0:15

fancy. Ruth, where are you? You at

0:17

home? I am in officially the

0:20

best place in the United Kingdom to live. I'm

0:23

in my house in North Berwick in East Lillian.

0:30

I'm Beth Rigby and this is Electoral

0:32

Dysfunction. What a week it's been. I

0:34

was absolutely knackered by Monday because I

0:37

spent quite a lot of the weekend

0:39

phoning Tories around to discuss potential Tory

0:41

plots. So we've got a lot to

0:43

talk about. First up, Rishi Sunak has

0:45

he gone from being embattled to beleaguered.

0:49

Got to ask Ruth that in a minute. And

0:51

what about the surprise resignation

0:54

of Leo Veracza? I was in makeup

0:56

at Sky News getting ready to go

0:58

and do PMQ's panel. And

1:00

then Sunday News Editor runs in and goes,

1:03

Leo Veracza is about to do a statement

1:05

and he's going to stand down. And it

1:07

was an absolute boom-bong show. No one was

1:09

expecting that. So we did a pivot to

1:11

Ireland and Leo Veracza. So we're going to

1:13

talk about him and his legacy.

1:15

And then, of course, Rwanda.

1:22

So much to talk about. Will the

1:24

flights take off before the election? And

1:26

today the highest number of migrants cross

1:29

the channel in a single day this

1:31

year. You know, the Prime

1:33

Minister talks a lot about boat crossings being

1:35

down by a third. But

1:38

on the back of the figures out at the

1:40

moment, they look to be about 10% higher

1:43

this year than they were at the same point in 2023.

1:47

So that is a lot to get through. Now, we have

1:49

some more of your messages. You

1:51

can WhatsApp voice notars on 07934

1:54

200 triple four. And

1:58

the email is electoral dysfunction. Also,

2:02

we want your questions which we

2:04

are going to try and answer

2:07

in a special Easter episode. So

2:09

send us some questions in. You

2:11

can ask these two wonderful ladies,

2:13

Jess and Ruth, anything you want.

2:15

Literally anything. So send them

2:17

in. Now let's

2:20

start with Rishi Sunak. Is

2:22

he having an electoral dysfunction?

2:25

Listen to this clip. It's from AJ.

2:29

I can't work out what Rishi wants his

2:32

legacy to be. No,

2:34

he's going to be the one that makes the difference.

2:36

He's not like anyone else. The

2:38

only way I'm going to believe that is if he stands up

2:40

and says, do you know what? My

2:42

party's broken. We can't do

2:44

this. We need to go away. Rethink

2:48

and for God's sake, let someone else fix

2:50

the country because they have broken it. Well,

2:53

that was AJ there. Now, Ruth. Last

2:57

week we were talking about Rishi

2:59

Sunak and you said that he

3:01

was embattled and that

3:04

he was one step away from beleaguered.

3:06

And when you're beleaguered, you're a

3:08

swear word that I'm apparently not allowed to say,

3:10

but you go ahead. Fucked. That's

3:13

the one. That is the word

3:15

I said. Although to be fair, it was you said

3:17

he was embattled. And I said, you don't want to

3:19

be embattled because that's only one away from beleaguered. And

3:22

when you're beleaguered, you're fucked. Okay. Well, is

3:24

he embattled and is he beleaguered? Over to you, Ruth. Yeah,

3:27

I think he is embattled. I'm not entirely

3:29

sure he's beleaguered yet. I

3:31

think there was a flashpoint of danger when he

3:33

was meeting with the 1922. That

3:35

is almost always the case when you actually

3:37

face people down that are agitated for you

3:39

to go. They're a bit paper

3:41

tigery. In terms of some of the decisions that

3:43

he's making, I think he's recognizing that he's a

3:45

bit embattled. So, yeah, so

3:47

I don't think necessarily he's plotting a course

3:50

that he would make if he didn't feel

3:52

pressure. And when you're under pressure, sometimes you

3:54

have trade-offs that you don't want to make

3:56

or you start making mistakes because it's harder to

3:58

make decisions under pressure. Do you think he's

4:01

in a worse place now than he

4:03

was even a week ago when we first talked about it?

4:06

I'm not sure he is. I think the flash point

4:08

is going to be the elections in May.

4:11

So he's by that point, everyone's going

4:13

to be knocking doors that standing again

4:15

over the Easter holidays. So

4:17

people have been getting direct feedback from the

4:19

doorsteps. We're probably going to see some pretty,

4:22

pretty chastening results in England in the local

4:24

authority elections in May. That will be a

4:26

big indicator of how the general election is

4:29

going to go. It'll

4:31

be the last kind of moment to really think

4:33

about changing leader before the general

4:36

election. I don't think it's going to

4:38

happen. But then off the back of that, we may well see

4:40

even more Tory MPs saying they're not going

4:42

to contest the election when it comes. And

4:45

yeah, so I think he's safe for

4:47

the next two, three weeks. I think

4:49

there's going to be a hard reckoning at the start of May.

4:51

Hard reckoning. I had to make so many

4:53

calls over the weekend. And this week, God,

4:56

this week feels like about three weeks in

4:58

one about where the party was

5:00

at because it was so feebly and you got

5:02

to get around all the different wings and speak

5:04

to sort of some of the sensible, some of

5:06

the agitators, some of the grandees, some of the

5:09

ones you trust to give you kind

5:11

of tell it how it was or is. It's

5:13

a bit calmer, Ruth, but I do not think

5:15

in any way, as you said, that he is

5:17

safe and that there isn't a real risk that

5:19

he could face a confidence vote

5:22

after the locals. Well, I think

5:24

there's also there's a point coming where I think

5:26

in some polls now, there's only maybe

5:28

four or five percent difference between the Tories

5:30

and reform. If there's a crossover poll, that

5:33

will really shake the foundation. Even if it's just

5:35

one, even if it's an outlier, people will get

5:37

really jittery at that as well. And if it

5:39

comes at around the same time that you see

5:41

the locals coming in, people are coming

5:43

back to parliament after having been away for a

5:45

couple of weeks and catching up with colleagues saying,

5:47

oh, it's terrible, even in the Shires, you can have a

5:49

wobble, I would reckon, beginning of May. I

5:51

think he's belated. You'd

5:55

be saying they're just waiting to see that, haven't you?

5:57

Don't talk over Ruth with the instruction that I was

5:59

given. and however, I'm

6:02

now going to break that instruction and

6:04

say, I think he's totally beleaguered, but

6:06

he's not alone. Because the way that

6:08

it plays out in Parliament, Monday, you

6:10

can tell when something's happening. Because

6:12

literally, the halls are lined with journalists.

6:14

The central lobby and then the members'

6:16

lobby. There's a couple of corridors that

6:18

lead to it. And you can always

6:20

tell there's something afoot because there's all

6:22

these people like dotted around looking for

6:24

people plotting. And so I was like,

6:27

oh, what's going on? It's exciting. I

6:29

saw Michelle Donilon. She looked awful. I

6:31

tried to get the gossip on that. I think she's just got a cold.

6:34

So basically, it felt febrile on

6:36

Monday. And every Monday, for the

6:38

last six weeks, pretty

6:40

much basically since we came back after

6:42

Christmas, every Monday, I thought the

6:44

election was going to be in May. Because every

6:46

Monday, there is some sort of terrible pitch point.

6:49

I don't know what Richard's saying that does to

6:51

his MPs over the weekend, or why you think

6:53

sending them home is a good idea. Because the

6:55

weekend starts to make them febrile for some reason.

6:57

And then on Monday, it feels like he's going

6:59

to be, he's going to be

7:01

toppled by some coup or whatever. And

7:04

then by Tuesday, it's

7:06

sort of like everybody's just slagging off the

7:08

cooers. And then by Wednesday, it's like,

7:11

he's all right again. And that

7:13

happens every single week, week in,

7:15

week out at the moment. And it's

7:17

so tedious. They cannot get a

7:20

coup off the ground because they are

7:22

not a united force themselves. It

7:24

feels like the whole thing is beleaguered, but

7:26

it felt more beleaguered this week than ever

7:28

before. You had people having argybargy in the

7:30

tea rooms. Oh, who was argybargy?

7:32

Well, I don't like to mention names. Oh,

7:34

go on. But people were argybargy with

7:36

the immigration minister in the tea room. They

7:39

were basically saying, why are you paying 3000 pounds

7:41

for people to get on the Rwanda thing? Like,

7:43

why don't you just clear the backlog? Genuinely Tory

7:45

MPs, like being annoyed at the

7:47

new flavour of the Rwanda story. They're

7:49

beleaguered, a plague on all of them.

7:51

Ruth, when you speak to some, can

7:53

you also see lots of MPs as

7:55

well? When you speak to some

7:58

of your mates in the Conservative Party still, knocking

8:00

about Westminster and you know AIDS

8:02

etc. What are you picking up?

8:05

Yeah well I mean I think up

8:07

until probably about autumn last year

8:09

there was still a question mark about whether this was going to

8:11

be a 97 or a 92 election

8:13

and I think from about October

8:15

onwards everybody is expecting that it's

8:18

going to be tough and that

8:20

they're going to lose a lot of colleagues and

8:22

it's not going to be you know out

8:25

of office for one term it's going to be

8:27

a pretty big kind of

8:29

hit. But when we talk about this potentially being

8:31

a change election and you've talked about that in

8:33

some of the past pods are you saying that

8:36

you think that the Tories could be out of

8:38

power for not one term but two? If history

8:40

is anything to go by there is a you

8:42

know there's a gap by which it's hard to

8:45

bounce back within a single term and

8:48

also when parties go out of power there's usually a

8:50

bit of a reckoning for that and then they decide

8:52

that they want power and they come back and start

8:54

making more sensible decisions and get into to challenge your

8:56

mode. I want to

8:59

go back to plotting because Jess you

9:01

were talking about it all being quite

9:03

tedious and I have

9:05

to say journalistically it is a combination

9:07

of a bit tedious and exhausting trying

9:09

to get across it because you want

9:11

to have your Saturday and suddenly you're

9:13

trying to have to you know I'm

9:16

having to phone Penny Morden to find

9:18

out if Penny Morden really is about

9:20

to launch a co-listener she was not

9:22

she was actually out campaigning in her

9:24

constituency of Portsmouth. But what I wanted

9:27

to ask Ruth was

9:29

let's try and unpick what's

9:31

going on a bit to explain to

9:35

our listeners like how do these

9:37

plots come about why do

9:39

they kind of end up on the front

9:41

of the Daily Mail on a Saturday and

9:44

then by Wednesday apparently it was never going

9:46

to happen. Like some insider insight to plotting

9:48

would be good I can give

9:50

you my perspective as well what it's like trying to cover

9:52

one. In terms of being inside

9:55

a qplot I don't know I've never really

9:57

done one the only time I've really kind

9:59

of properly. agitated, I guess,

10:01

for a change of leaders. I did write

10:03

a letter to the leader

10:05

of the chairman of the 1922

10:08

committee after the European

10:10

elections for Theresa May to

10:12

be replaced, because I thought, you know, there was no place

10:14

for her to go. And I'm not an MP,

10:16

so you know, I'm not part of the parliamentary

10:18

party. But I wanted to record as the leader

10:20

in Scotland what the view of the parliamentary party

10:22

and Scottish party and Scottish parliament and

10:25

my membership around the country was. But

10:27

I mean, I would always kind of do it face to

10:29

face. I'm not, I think I just must be crap

10:31

at this sort of thing, because I'm just not a

10:33

plotter. I'm not really one for huddles. And if we

10:36

do this, then we can destabilise that like just like

10:38

either you think you'd be

10:41

better go after the job, or

10:43

don't shut up, do it. You were

10:45

the victim of a plot though, weren't

10:47

you? Yeah, I had a couple of times they tried to

10:49

shake the truth with me. So the bastards.

10:52

Well, I had kind of interesting start because I

10:54

was only elected in May and I was leader

10:57

by November. So we did quite a bad election

10:59

in Scotland when I got elected. And I was

11:01

the only new MSP, the only new

11:03

Member of Parliament in Scotland. All

11:05

of the other MSPs, obviously, they were all

11:07

sort of older and more experienced than me, but

11:09

none of them really wanted me to be the

11:11

party leader. There was a lot of lot

11:14

of anonymous briefing. And it went

11:16

on probably off and on for the first sort of 18

11:18

months, two years. And you

11:20

know, I had a very steep learning curve. I wasn't the best

11:22

leader when I started. I hope that I

11:24

got better as I went on. But I had a bit

11:26

of a showdown with the outrider of one of them. So

11:29

I had a kind of sit down meeting in the Millennium

11:31

Hotel. There was nobody else, it's just the two of us

11:33

and I properly dug in and said, look, if they want

11:35

to come for me, they can fucking come for me. Like

11:37

don't be doing any of this. If they want to take

11:39

the job, that's grand, but they couldn't

11:41

win in an election of the membership. And

11:43

if they think they can do it by anonymous briefings,

11:46

that's not going to be enough. I'm not going

11:48

to walk. They will have to take this job

11:50

from me because I'm, you know, what the

11:52

membership voted for. This is what we've chosen to

11:54

do. We've got a referendum coming.

11:56

We're keeping Scotland within the United Kingdom is

11:58

far more important. then what happens

12:00

to the Scottish Conservative Party? We must make sure

12:03

that we get this part right. And you know,

12:05

as soon as you face people down, they melt

12:07

away. People want led. People within political parties, they

12:09

want led. And as soon as you become the

12:12

leader, even if it was a really close

12:14

contest, you have another

12:16

element to it and it becomes harder.

12:18

It becomes harder to depose a leader

12:20

than somebody who's than defeating somebody in

12:23

a leadership election. So

12:25

on Penny Morden, the curious thing

12:27

about all of this is that

12:29

she obviously ran against Liz Truss.

12:31

She then tried it against Rishi

12:33

Sunak. She is actively

12:35

getting around all of the associations around the

12:37

country. I'm sure she definitely has leadership ambitions.

12:39

You all might remember her from carrying that

12:42

massive sword. You remember that at

12:44

the coronation, the giant sword, what

12:47

she carried for about 50 plus minutes,

12:50

arms of steel. There's a certain

12:52

selection of our listeners that will also remember her

12:54

from Splash, where she wore a swimsuit. Splash. Yeah.

12:58

I can't think of anything I would rather

13:01

less do than one wear

13:03

a swimsuit on national television,

13:05

never. And to dive off the

13:07

top. Penny Morden, the rumors

13:09

that went round this week, the overarching view

13:12

in parliament from Tory MPs that I spoke

13:14

to is that the Penny Morden rumors came

13:16

from Rishi. They came from number 10 as

13:19

much as anywhere else. So they're

13:21

basically they're trying to smoke out

13:23

the opposition, which is not

13:25

uncommon. And so I think that that's

13:28

the view is that the plotting was lots of it was

13:30

coming from number 10 itself. But

13:32

Penny Morden is absolutely plotting. I

13:35

don't think to topple Rishi Sunak

13:38

to be the leader after Rishi Sunak and

13:40

rather than be the prime minister, but be

13:42

the leader of the Tory party. And

13:45

it's very, very, very obvious to

13:47

anybody watching that that is the

13:49

case. Penny Morden is absolutely unmanoversed.

13:51

So on the on the plotting

13:53

thing, that's really interesting just that

13:55

that's going around because you

13:57

know what you were saying, Ruth, about kind

14:00

of politicians do it all in the

14:02

shadows. I actually had contact with Penny

14:05

on Saturday and she

14:07

actually did say something. She didn't want to

14:09

make a big deal, she didn't want to,

14:11

as she said, fan the flames of it,

14:13

but she told me the public are rather

14:15

tired of these stories and she made it

14:18

clear that from her perspective

14:20

the stuff in the papers were nonsense.

14:22

When I put that out online I

14:24

got a bit of rebuttal from other

14:26

people in different bits of

14:28

the party that made me think

14:31

maybe they were the people that were trying

14:33

to push this line. The

14:35

line effectively was that the

14:37

right of the party, so some of

14:39

the groupings on the right of the

14:41

party, were prepared to have Penny Mordant

14:44

as a potential successor to Rishi

14:46

Sunak, like a unity candidate because

14:48

she's not of that wing

14:50

of the party in order to get

14:53

Rishi out of the job and Penny

14:55

in. Now there's a few things going

14:57

on there. Number one, whether

14:59

Penny would ever do that in terms

15:01

of those people backing her, because the

15:03

other thing, the other criteria was that

15:05

Penny would have to give the right

15:08

vetoes on social issues because part of

15:10

the problem she's had with different wings

15:12

of the party is they think that

15:14

she's too socially progressive when it comes

15:17

to issues around trans rights etc. But

15:20

the whole thing was kind of a little

15:22

bit pie in the sky that Penny gets

15:24

brought in in order to kind of be

15:26

a unity candidate in a party where they're

15:29

fighting like ferrets in a

15:31

sack basically for a descendency.

15:33

So you know Jesse were

15:35

actually spot on Penny of

15:37

courses on maneuvers. Grant Shapps

15:39

reckons himself for the job. Ruth,

15:42

Grant's having a little go. You've

15:44

got Kemi Badernot, there's lots of

15:46

talk around her still. Pretty Patel,

15:48

pretty Patel my early little candidate

15:51

that I mentioned. Flying under the

15:53

radar, pretty also might get the

15:55

backing of Boris Johnson of course. I reckon she

15:57

would. I agree with you. I think we're on

15:59

the the money from the very

16:01

get-go. Pretty Patel is flying under

16:03

the radar but making up ground,

16:05

maybe overtaking people in this race,

16:07

but we just don't know it

16:09

yet. I mean, I think

16:11

that you've read out a whole

16:14

list of people as potential candidates

16:16

to replace Rishi Sunak and

16:18

be the Prime Minister. And I think the

16:20

more people look at what the alternatives might be, the

16:22

more they're going to bang their desk to Rishi Sunak

16:24

every time there's a 1922 committee. Because

16:28

whatever you think of his ability to do

16:30

the politics of politics, as a

16:32

serious person who is smart enough for

16:34

the job, who is qualified enough for the

16:36

job, who works hard,

16:38

who has a solidity about him,

16:41

he is all of these things. It might just

16:43

be that the Tory party just has

16:45

to go into the next election with their

16:47

chin out with him as Prime

16:49

Minister, and I think that is what's going to

16:52

happen. Do you talk about May the 2nd being

16:54

a wobble? How big a moment is it going

16:56

to be? Ruth, do you think

16:59

he will face a confidence vote

17:01

after May the 2nd? For

17:03

listeners, a confidence vote is when 50 or

17:06

so Conservative MPs put a letter in to

17:08

the chair, to the convener of the backbenchers

17:10

to say that they don't have confidence in

17:12

a Prime Minister and then it triggers a

17:14

vote? It depends. It

17:17

depends whether May the 2nd is a bloodbath

17:19

or whether it goes into the realms of

17:22

annihilation. Being a bad night

17:24

is already priced in. It's how bad a night

17:26

it's going to be, and if it's

17:28

much worse than people think it is, then

17:30

I do think there is a high chance that

17:33

there might be, in almost a kind

17:35

of last roll of the dice sense. But then

17:37

we come back to who are the potential runners

17:39

and riders? Are they better than

17:41

the current Prime Minister? Are

17:44

they able to communicate

17:46

a better narrative to the public? And are they

17:48

more popular? They're looking around

17:50

the current sort of crop of people that

17:52

are being mentioned, and there's not very

17:54

many that I can see that fulfil that. I was

17:57

talking to a Conservative Party

17:59

source. other night and they

18:01

said that conservative campaign headquarters, they're

18:03

basically the people that run the

18:05

election, now want to be

18:07

ready for an election in June in

18:10

case the Prime Minister does

18:12

face a confidence vote, in which point

18:14

he can call an

18:16

election, right? That's only one

18:18

source, just to put it into context.

18:21

And I put that to someone who

18:23

is, you know, agitating and they

18:26

said that if the PM

18:28

tried to go to the country to

18:30

forestall a leadership challenge, he would be

18:32

removed before he got to the palace.

18:34

Jesus. I know the bat phone is

18:37

hot today. Again, that sounds classic,

18:39

paper tiger, tough talk. How

18:41

do you stop a Prime Minister from going to

18:43

the palace when like the Sky News Copter is

18:45

in the air following him along? Like, I don't

18:47

think so. You talk to people that are doing

18:49

the like Q-chat, more than I will, they wouldn't

18:52

come to me, but they would go to you

18:54

and they would drop a bit in here. So

18:56

who is it? Is it the Outriders? Is it

18:58

sort of MPs talking for their pals that they want to get

19:00

into it that think that they would get in the head and

19:02

do it at first? Is it the people

19:04

themselves that have their eye on the job? Go on,

19:07

tell us. I think that part of

19:09

the reason that this is all quite febrile

19:11

and people don't really know what's going on

19:13

is that it's all in the shadows, right?

19:16

So all of the principles are like

19:18

hands clean and they've got proxies

19:20

and there's Outriders and there's gossip and it

19:22

builds up and then someone will say something.

19:24

And that's when I said that I had

19:26

to make a lot of phone calls, I

19:29

had to make a lot of phone calls

19:31

because it's very disorganized. And when it's very

19:33

disorganized, you have to go across lots

19:35

and lots of different sources in

19:38

order to try and piece together a

19:40

picture of things that are unclear, which

19:42

is why it is quite hard and

19:44

it takes a lot of time and

19:46

that's why I get grumpy. Like

19:48

genuinely, this is tough to cover.

19:52

Going back to what you said about

19:54

Paper Tigers, Ruth, I kind

19:56

of agreed in the sense that everyone was

19:58

a bit puffed up at the same time. the weekend and there

20:01

was this briefings going out about Morden and

20:03

then a lot of pushback from

20:05

Morden's allies, right? And

20:08

then it dissipates. But what hasn't dissipated,

20:10

I don't think, is the nub of

20:13

it, which is what you've talked about,

20:15

which is the polling is terrible. Reform

20:18

are now within four points

20:20

according to one poll. You've

20:23

got record migrant crossings today.

20:25

So the fundamentals are

20:28

all of the ingredients that make some in

20:30

the party think we are going to face

20:32

annihilation. If we change leader, at least we

20:34

can manage the loss a bit. When it

20:36

comes to a confidence vote, I

20:39

think what helps the prime minister at the moment

20:41

is it is not very organized. There

20:44

is no one actively, I would say,

20:47

people are preparing campaigns, but is

20:49

anyone actually ready to move? You

20:52

know, that's a big open question. Can I

20:55

throw a curveball in about now the second,

20:57

you know that they can put the elections

20:59

off for the local elections. Yep,

21:01

they can move it to June. They do

21:03

it, you should do it for the European elections. I

21:06

wouldn't put it past them. I

21:08

don't think I don't. I don't see

21:10

it. She's she's flown a kite. She

21:12

is how it land. That was a curve fall,

21:14

Jess. But I don't see that one coming

21:16

on this thing about the confidence

21:18

vote. I do think that what

21:20

you said, Ruth, is what I

21:23

cannot work out is whether it

21:25

comes about by accident rather than

21:27

design, ie. when the Boris team

21:29

were trying to get rid of

21:31

May, and it took many, many

21:33

attempts, they were bloody organized, right?

21:35

They were really organized. There

21:38

is not that sort of level of

21:40

organization. And there's not one candidate that

21:42

the party can coalesce around. But if

21:44

people get really, really anxious, do

21:46

you tip into the number of letters just

21:49

because enough people are freaking out that

21:51

you get to a confidence vote, which

21:54

you might wish you'd probably win, right? Even

21:56

when you win it, you don't win it,

21:58

you lose it. Yeah, everybody. loses

22:00

it. Doesn't matter what the outcome is.

22:03

Yeah, I think Jess is right. And we've seen it before

22:05

we've seen it with John

22:07

Major, we've seen it with Theresa May, we've

22:09

seen it down the the confidence vote is

22:11

a sign that something is very wrong, and

22:13

you're on borrowed time. So even if you

22:15

win and face down a confidence vote, you

22:18

are damaged. I think your point is valid.

22:20

There isn't an obvious successor here,

22:22

which means there isn't the ruthlessness that

22:24

you have of people desperate to

22:27

get their man in or women in, in the

22:29

way that you had with with Boris and the

22:31

organization that went into that and you can see

22:33

what they could see what they thought the prize

22:36

was. So that that gives you direction that it

22:38

gives you focus here, it's very disparate. There's like,

22:40

as you say, five, six different people that think

22:42

they would have a chance, and their pals think

22:44

that their mate might have a chance. That doesn't

22:47

bring the ruthlessness that you need to bring down a

22:49

prime minister. However, it is

22:52

chaotic enough that you could absolutely see a

22:54

case where enough letters go in from enough

22:56

people thinking that they're going to shake the

22:59

tree a bit or put pressure on the

23:01

Prime Minister that tips over almost by mistake.

23:03

And suddenly the party finds itself without a

23:05

leader going crap, right, who are we

23:07

going to do now with an election looming? You

23:09

know, like those flowcharts where you go this

23:11

happens and then these are the options. Like

23:14

the Prime Minister is trying to sort of steer

23:16

this kind of course towards an autumn election. And

23:19

then there's like all these, like

23:21

fireballs coming in. We talk about

23:23

how the opposition to the Prime Minister or the

23:25

people that fancy their chances to be the next

23:27

leader aren't that organised. Where are the

23:29

people that are bolstering the Prime Minister? Where are his

23:32

allies right now? Every time there's some

23:34

good news or there's something good on the grid,

23:36

it gets washed away by other stories because people

23:38

aren't out doing the hard yards of doing the

23:40

studio tours. You know, we just had inflation down

23:42

to one of its lowest levels for like three

23:44

years or something. It's down below where we thought

23:46

it was going to be. It's absolutely hitting the

23:48

heights of one of the key things the Prime

23:50

Minister said he was going to do before the

23:52

next election. You know, where was the Chancellor going

23:54

out there as the senior member

23:56

of the Treasury team? Absolutely doing the hard

23:59

yards of everything. angle studio and doing

24:02

the communication part. The reason is, is

24:04

because they haven't got the staff genuinely

24:06

because like rats on a sinking ship,

24:08

they just don't have the infrastructure. It

24:11

doesn't matter how much money you've got,

24:13

that if you cannot get good people

24:15

who are experienced and know exactly what

24:17

you just said has to happen, like,

24:19

you know, like air war, air war,

24:21

air war on your good news, like

24:24

it's because they are beleaguered, I'm afraid.

24:26

I feel like now

24:28

we're at the Oxford Union and I'm arguing for

24:30

beleaguered and you're arguing against me. Right,

24:37

Leo Veragke. Now, what

24:40

do we think about this? He dropped the

24:42

bombshell, he's 45 years old, he's

24:44

been the leader of Finnegan for seven

24:46

years, he's been the tea shop, that's

24:48

the Irish Prime Minister, for

24:51

two different like stints and

24:54

he just came out and announced that he

24:56

was stepping down from the

24:58

job and from the leader of the parties. No

25:00

one saw it coming, I mean it was, you

25:03

know, normally you get a bit of room or this that, I

25:05

mean he's had a bit of a torrid time but it

25:08

was a pretty big bombshell that dropped.

25:10

Perhaps he saw the writing on the

25:12

wall in terms of the next election

25:15

in Ireland which has to be held

25:17

by March 2025 at the latest. But

25:19

do we think he's

25:22

come out on top this week because he's

25:24

gone on his own terms at a time

25:26

of his choosing? What do you think, Jess?

25:28

I think that you could definitely make that

25:30

argument and you could make, there's a number

25:32

of sort of progressive well-loved leaders

25:35

recently who appear to come

25:37

out absolutely on top. So

25:39

Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand

25:41

at a similar time to

25:43

hold onto your hat here

25:45

Ruth, Nicola Sturgeon and now

25:47

Leo Viraga seeming to sort

25:49

of bow out at

25:51

a high point which is absolutely, you win at

25:53

politics if you manage to do this, if you

25:55

manage to go out respected and

25:58

not just wholly slagged off. We

26:00

look at these people, especially because quite

26:02

a lot of populism is spread

26:04

across the world. We look to

26:06

people like Lee Averac and even

26:08

Macron to Cinder Arden and we think,

26:11

oh, wouldn't that be nice if we had a

26:13

bit of that sort of sensible centrism? And actually,

26:15

if you speak to people who live in those

26:17

countries, the view from abroad

26:19

is quite different to the people who actually live

26:22

there. My mates who live in Ireland are basically,

26:24

all they ever talk to me about is

26:26

both health and housing crisis. They

26:29

literally can't get houses. So I imagine he

26:31

was probably about to be shut

26:33

out of the canon anyway. It does seem like he's

26:36

very on top and actually it's the right thing

26:38

for him and he'll go out

26:40

mainly being remembered for the legacy of the

26:42

abortion and the gay marriage and all of

26:45

those good things. When I think about Verac,

26:47

I think about Brexit and the way

26:49

in which he worked that with the

26:51

European Union and caused Johnson some problems

26:53

and the way in which that seemed

26:56

to kind of get

26:58

him more of an audience in the

27:00

US, although of course, the sort of

27:02

Irish connection, particularly with Biden in the

27:04

White House, has helped. That's

27:07

my perspective of Verac, but of course he

27:09

had these two

27:11

referendums in Ireland, which

27:13

he lost both of them. One was

27:15

about changing the language around women and

27:17

women in the home, in

27:19

the constitution. And the second was

27:22

about sort of expanding the definition

27:24

of marriage. Can I tell you my

27:27

favourite thing that I want to remember Leo Verac

27:29

for? Which apart from gay marriage,

27:31

I think he should be remembered for the

27:34

most craven note that a

27:36

premier has ever sent to anybody in my

27:38

life. And he sent it to Kylie Minogue

27:40

and it said, Dear Kylie, just

27:42

wanted to drop you a short note in advance

27:45

of the concert in Dublin. I'm really looking

27:47

forward to it. I'm a huge fan. I understand

27:50

you're saying it that Marion?

27:52

He's got, he is a doctor, so he's got

27:54

doctor's handwriting. I'm saying in the Marion Hotel, which

27:57

is just across the street from my office in

27:59

government buildings. If you like,

28:01

I'd love to welcome you to Ireland personally.

28:03

Aww. Leo,

28:05

Leo V. Don't even play this full name,

28:07

Leo V. Yeah,

28:10

but in the global status, right, Kylie

28:12

does sit above Leo Verragta, it's only

28:14

right then. If you

28:16

were going to send that sort of note to

28:18

someone that you really wanted to meet, who would

28:21

be the bar for you Jess? Keanu

28:23

is. Who I did actually want

28:25

to meet in Parliament. I did too! And

28:28

I behaved, I didn't behave

28:30

appallingly, I behaved like a

28:32

blamond. He's the only person I have

28:34

ever met and I've met, you know,

28:37

like absolute A-list Hollywood stars. He's the

28:39

only person I ever met and I

28:41

just literally stood there and it was

28:44

like, I love

28:46

Keanu Reeves. I have seen the film

28:48

Point Break one million

28:50

times. When I was

28:52

a student, I worked in the audience cinema

28:54

in Edinburgh, which always held the opening and

28:57

closing galas of the Edinburgh International Film Festival

28:59

and the staff at the closing gala got

29:01

invited to the after party, which was at

29:03

Dynamic Earth. And so I

29:05

mean, I'm a teenager here, like 19

29:08

or 20 or whatever, got very drunk,

29:10

posh dress on, decide

29:12

the ball's roof is going to go up to John Cusack and

29:15

tell him, as in like actual John Cusack,

29:18

because he had Pushing Tin. Pushing

29:20

Tin? Yeah, I love John Cusack and all of his

29:22

work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And

29:24

I went up and said, you know, Mr Cusack, you

29:26

know, huge fan, blah, blah, blah. Would

29:29

you like to dance? Like

29:32

he was very polite, said no. I was like,

29:34

well, can you give me a kiss? Was

29:37

this before you were eliminated? Yeah,

29:39

it wasn't before I was eliminated. And

29:43

he left the party shortly afterwards and it's inexplicable

29:45

as to why. Did you get a

29:47

kiss? Did you get a kiss? Did

29:50

I eckers like, no, I didn't get a kiss.

29:53

I was very drunk. But could you imagine

29:55

asking actual John, actual Cusack for a

29:57

dance at due at 19 years old?

30:00

What an idiot! What an absolute

30:02

idiot. I wish I'd asked Keanu Reistriki, so I think he's

30:04

so polite you might have given me one. Yeah,

30:06

I think he would have. We have slightly

30:09

digressed, so I've got to get us

30:11

back on track here. Now, just before

30:13

we do, Ruth, just on Veracra, what

30:15

I was talking about was that he'd

30:18

lost these couple of referendums that actually

30:20

the country probably were broadly supportive of

30:22

the policies, but the politics around how

30:24

they went about the referendums was apparently

30:27

really bad and they lost them. That

30:29

was really damaging for his authority. I

30:31

mean, do you think he goes out

30:33

on a higher or low? No? I

30:35

don't think that's why he went. I mean, he became Taoiseach

30:37

when he was 38, so pretty young, and

30:40

he had, you know, with Brexit and with

30:43

Covid and with all the other stuff that

30:45

he was facing, he'd had quite a tough

30:47

run. He'd also gone from being sort of

30:49

undisputed Taoiseach and being the largest party by

30:51

a long way within the government to having

30:54

to form a coalition with both Cenophile and

30:56

the Greens and, you know,

30:58

was tarnished for a bit while the leader of

31:00

the other main coalition partner was Taoiseach. And then

31:02

I think he was canny in the politics and

31:04

gave himself the best chance of letting the other

31:07

guy have the first half of this

31:09

parliament and he'd have the second half. So for

31:11

his party going into the election, you've got all

31:13

the trappings of kind of office and you can

31:15

use that to your advantage. So I think he'd

31:17

been canny there. But I think it probably is

31:19

quite attritional, like big jobs. They take it out

31:21

of you. You do kind of feel like how

31:23

much new ground by the end of it are

31:26

you charting and are you doing the job better

31:28

or worse than you started? And for me, when I

31:30

stood down after eight years, I didn't think I

31:32

was doing the job as well at the end. As

31:35

I think I was dropping off,

31:37

I was getting worse at it. And there is a

31:39

point of professional pride where you don't want to continue

31:41

doing something less well. Let's

31:43

pause here. Coming up, your

31:46

messages and questions, including one for

31:48

you, Jess. Why

31:50

don't politicians answer the question?

32:05

Welcome back, let's talk about Rwanda.

32:07

Now the bill which is about

32:09

deporting failed asylum seekers to Rwanda

32:11

has been sent back to the

32:14

Commons after peers rejected

32:16

it, a defeat for the government. Now

32:18

Jess, I think to any

32:20

listener out there, when we talk

32:22

about a bill being ping-ponged and

32:24

going back from the Commons to

32:26

the Lords, can you explain what

32:29

the hell is going on? So

32:31

the Lords have put in loads

32:33

of changes to the legislation that

32:35

frankly would liberalise it. So it's things

32:37

like no children, no pregnant women would

32:39

be able to be sent, it's other

32:41

things about what has to be put

32:43

in place before Rwanda happens like safeguards

32:45

about monitoring human rights and that sort

32:47

of thing. And then when they put

32:49

those changes into the bill, it comes

32:51

back to us and we vote on

32:53

whether we want to keep those changes

32:56

in. I voted for every one of

32:58

the changes that the Lords asked

33:00

for and then it gets sent back

33:02

to them. Now ping-pong is

33:05

they will keep sending it back to

33:07

us and eventually somebody gives

33:09

in, it's a bit like a sort of

33:11

stalemate. Now the Lords tend to not ping-pong,

33:13

not send it back to us after it's

33:16

been sent back to them very

33:19

many times usually. And

33:21

there's a couple of categories where they don't do it.

33:23

They don't do it if it was in the manifesto,

33:26

if it's in a manifesto because we were elected by

33:28

the people and the Lords weren't, they have this sort

33:31

of recognition where they go, but this was in the

33:33

manifesto, they won the election on the basis of this,

33:35

we shouldn't be touching this. The other

33:37

things about finances, they don't do as

33:39

well, they don't mess around with the Treasury.

33:41

And normally after one ping-pong, we usually, we

33:44

have it, we send it to them, they

33:46

send it back, we send it back and

33:48

then it comes back to us and that's

33:50

the end, usually that's the limit. I don't

33:52

think that will be the case on Rwanda.

33:54

So this is the first ping of the

33:56

third piece of legislation that we've had on

33:58

this that is heading. failed. So

34:01

Ruth, now you're a conservative

34:03

peer. I am. Government were

34:05

trying to get a lot of the

34:07

conservative peers to go to the Lords

34:10

on Wednesday night in order

34:12

to try and get this bill through. They try and

34:14

whip you. I know it's not as easy to whip

34:16

the Lords, but they try

34:18

and whip the Lords. It's more complicated,

34:20

isn't it? Because, and again, for listeners,

34:23

there's also crossbench peers in. So whilst

34:25

the House of Commons is really like

34:27

party political, the Lords

34:29

is a bit different. There's what are

34:31

called crossbench peers that are not aligned to

34:34

either party. There are conservative peers,

34:36

Labour peers, Lib Dem peers, etc, etc.

34:39

Did you go and vote? And did you get

34:41

whipped? And did you just not want to? Like,

34:43

how did it work from your perspective? Yeah,

34:45

so I told my whip, as I told, I

34:47

mean, I'm thinking I'm on my third whip in

34:49

the last six months or something like that, that

34:51

they did not want me in the hopes because

34:53

I would vote against absolutely every government position on

34:56

this because I fundamentally disagree with the policy. And

34:59

I don't want to ease its passage in any way because

35:01

I don't want it to become law. So

35:03

at which point when you tell them stuff like that,

35:05

in that way, they kind of leave you alone a

35:07

little bit. Because I was making some calls on this

35:09

this week. And if

35:11

the government really wants to get

35:13

this bill through before Parliament breaks

35:15

up, it breaks up next Tuesday

35:17

for Easter, they can

35:19

do things like force the laws

35:22

just to keep sitting all night,

35:24

they like rail rolled it through

35:26

by insisting that it has to

35:28

keep going back to the laws

35:30

and being voted on to try

35:32

and force it through. They've called

35:34

it emergency legislation. It's been

35:37

going through for about four months

35:39

now. So it's going to come

35:42

back after Easter. What

35:44

is going on? What can they

35:46

force it through, Ruth? It's

35:48

clear that they don't want to know

35:50

there's been a trade off here between

35:52

keeping the MP suite and the

35:54

pressure that was put on a lot of peers to

35:56

get in, even though they didn't overturn

35:59

any of the the Labour amendments that were

36:01

put on, there was a big Tory

36:03

turnout. People came and stayed and

36:05

they had a lot of pressure put

36:08

on them. I fundamentally

36:10

don't understand why this is the hill that Rishi

36:12

Sunak is trying to die on. The

36:16

dogs in the street out there know that

36:18

this won't make even a

36:21

percentage difference to the amount of migration that comes

36:23

to this country or not. If you want to

36:26

do something on immigration, and I am out of

36:28

step, we'll hold my hand up, I'm out of

36:30

step with my party and with many people in

36:32

the country about how we should talk about immigration

36:34

and where the numbers should be and how we

36:36

should be making sure that we have much more

36:38

legal roots, that we are attracting the people that

36:40

we want to come to this country, that we

36:42

have a much fairer way of doing the assessment

36:44

and that we have a much quicker way of

36:47

returning people who aren't supposed to be here that

36:49

we say no to rather than something like this

36:51

which is gimmicky. I just don't

36:53

understand either the politics of it or

36:55

the symbolism of it. What's interesting to

36:57

me as a hack about this, Ruth,

37:00

is the fact you are so strongly against

37:02

the policy and the fact that so

37:04

many people in your party are so pro

37:07

it. I'm not sure that many of

37:09

them are sold on this policy. They're sold

37:11

on looking tough on immigration because they have

37:13

pressures within their own constituencies. I think stopping

37:16

the boats with the wrong tagline because it's

37:18

impossible to happen and you'll be shown to

37:20

have failed. Reducing illegal immigration, absolutely.

37:22

You can have that as an aspiration and

37:24

the Tories want to do that and that's

37:26

fine. They seem to think people really,

37:28

really, really want it and

37:31

I've never met a person ever

37:34

who really, really wants it. So

37:37

you both hate the policy,

37:39

you both think it's a gimmick which

37:41

is the line that Keir Starmer has

37:43

been now trotting out probably because there

37:45

is an expectation, I think a growing

37:47

expectation, that maybe a flight or

37:50

two or a few will go. But

37:53

Ruth, isn't the thing for your party that

37:56

it's a wedge issue between reform and the

38:00

When I went down to the Lee

38:02

Anderson big moment a couple weeks

38:04

ago, Richard Tyson was banging on

38:06

about immigration, furious that the conservatives

38:08

had let voters down on the

38:10

pledges they'd made in the manifesto

38:12

about driving down numbers of immigration.

38:15

There's a poll out today. Only

38:17

one poll. I have to say that

38:19

because you've got to look at a poll of

38:21

polls really to get a real sense of what's

38:23

going on. This poll will

38:25

nevertheless really, really make many conservatives nervous

38:28

because the conservatives have dropped below 20%

38:30

or 19% reformer on 15%. When

38:37

you talk about not getting

38:39

it, you surely get that for some

38:41

of your colleagues, they think

38:43

that being tough on

38:45

immigration is a

38:48

bit about manifesto pledges but also about

38:50

trying to see off the threat of

38:52

reform. Let's look at how effective it

38:54

is. The

38:57

tougher and tougher and tougher, the Tory

38:59

party has talks on immigration, the

39:01

less and less effective actually the immigration

39:03

service has been pretty much. It hasn't

39:05

been working. In terms

39:07

of the current threat that they see

39:09

from reform, the people that are crossing

39:12

to reform are clearly

39:14

not believing that the

39:16

government is doing enough no matter how

39:18

much they talk. It's not

39:20

about getting one plane in the sky. I

39:23

believe it's about efficacy if we

39:25

had shown as a government that

39:27

there was a control here, there was

39:29

an agency here, that this was not

39:31

something that we were constantly reacting to but it

39:33

was something that we were laying out and

39:36

that it was working and that it was

39:39

a process-driven system that

39:41

clearly worked, I think

39:44

we would be in a much better place. The point is

39:46

when you say, I don't know why I made it the

39:48

hill to die on, he has. I

39:51

think that moment that they get a

39:53

plane up in the sky, whatever you

39:55

both think about it, politically he'll be

39:58

able to chalk that up as. a

40:00

win. Anyway, let's ask some questions

40:02

now. We have a voice note from Ruth.

40:05

How refreshing to hear politicians

40:08

talk about other politicians who

40:10

don't answer questions. The

40:12

impact on me and a great deal of

40:14

my friends is that when

40:17

they don't answer the questions repeatedly,

40:20

what it does is it

40:22

makes us not trust anything

40:24

they say because they just

40:26

simply will not be honest and open.

40:29

Oh, Ruth, thanks for that. Do you know, I bet

40:32

she makes cracking scones that way. You have

40:34

actually got a lovely voice, Ruth. Why

40:37

don't politicians answer the questions? Jess, take

40:39

it away. They don't answer the questions

40:41

because they were sent there to land

40:43

a line that they have been told

40:46

that they have to get across. And

40:49

sometimes that's noble, Ruth. Sometimes you're there

40:51

to talk about a specific policy that

40:53

would be a good thing. And actually,

40:55

some, I don't know, some terrible

40:58

thing has befallen somebody else or some

41:00

of the news story has come up and

41:02

it's really quite irritating because you were there

41:04

to talk about the thing you might have

41:06

worked on for years. So you go, and

41:08

they try and get the line across. So

41:10

that's the generous answer. The truth is as

41:13

well is that before a politician goes on

41:15

like Jocoon's Berg or sits in front of

41:17

Badasseh, they are literally

41:19

drilled by like there's like four

41:21

people and they're going and

41:23

they practice the answers. The truth is,

41:25

is that they're worried that

41:28

they'll get held accountable for some of the things

41:30

they say. You can accidentally say

41:32

something and for it to be misrepresented. And

41:35

then it's your whole week's work gone. And

41:37

so you're trying to guard against

41:40

that. What I wish politicians would

41:42

understand though, is that it's

41:44

so unpopular. It's really deeply

41:46

unpopular. So you should just answer the question.

41:48

Sometimes you know what, if you don't know

41:50

the answer, just say, I don't know

41:53

the answer. I don't know. And I

41:55

know maybe I should know that. But the trouble

41:57

is, if you were that honest, the headlines for

41:59

the rest of the week would be. Minister

42:01

doesn't know what they're talking about. So

42:04

we're in a sort of catch 22

42:06

about why politicians don't answer the questions.

42:09

Ruth, what do you think? I think Jess

42:11

is absolutely right in terms of kind of

42:13

what's at stake. And there are some questions that

42:16

you know, the way it's framed, what the

42:18

journalist is trying to get out of it. You

42:20

get kind of canny at dealing with journalists

42:22

that are trying to do the kind of gotcha

42:24

interviews. But a lot of journalists aren't. They're

42:26

actually asking you a question that

42:28

they feel is their job as somebody that was

42:31

a journalist for 10 years before it was a

42:33

politician. I've always kind of appreciated the fact that

42:35

I always felt I was asking on behalf of

42:37

either my listener or the reader.

42:39

And it's the answers to the questions

42:41

that they want to know. Like I've

42:44

been really lucky because as

42:46

the Scottish party leader, I had my own

42:48

mandate. You know, I've never in my entire

42:50

political life really been subject

42:52

to either preferment or

42:55

promotion or anything like that. So nobody's ever

42:57

ever been able to dangle a carrot from

42:59

me being well behaved or really sanction me

43:02

for being badly behaved. So I've got

43:04

to be allowed to answer it in the

43:06

way that I want it. And I

43:09

fundamentally believe that even if you say

43:11

something that you know, the person that you're

43:13

speaking to is going to disagree with, if you

43:15

can explain why or explain that you really believe

43:18

it, they will respect you more

43:20

even if they disagree with you. Just to

43:22

pick up on that, Ruth, as well, like

43:24

as someone that is asking the

43:26

questions, I've done a few interviews this week and

43:29

I've had a couple of politicians, I won't say

43:31

who they are, but they

43:33

were just whatever question I asked

43:35

them, it was like the roller decks in

43:37

their brain went inflation answer,

43:39

labor spending plans answer.

43:42

And they gave me

43:44

a completely anodyne

43:47

answer that was not answering a question

43:49

that was a line to take because

43:51

what happens is politicians get given a

43:53

briefing from central office and

43:55

for all from the leaders

43:57

office about lines to take.

44:00

interviews. Now more sophisticated politicians will

44:02

take the lines to take and

44:04

they'll make them their own lines

44:06

so it makes it sound like

44:08

they're actually answering. When you probably

44:10

get really annoyed is that they

44:12

are literally trotting out lines to

44:15

take and then that also can create quite

44:17

a bad interview I think because then the

44:19

journalist gets annoyed as well

44:22

and the bigger issue about it is, and

44:24

I agree with Ruth on this, is just

44:26

that you and Jess that you then just

44:29

do a disservice to the listener because it's

44:31

not the journalist you're not answering it's the

44:33

actual viewer or the listener so and I

44:35

also think that saying I

44:38

don't know is actually is

44:40

a reasonable answer but I also think that

44:42

there is a difference between like what's nice

44:44

about doing this podcast is that we can

44:47

actually chat I'm not trying to

44:49

force you into giving me an answer in

44:51

a tight spot or it's not on camera

44:53

in and of what I mean we actually

44:55

aren't I can see all of you but

44:58

it's not a performative television thing I think

45:00

part of the reason that maybe hate you

45:02

like listening to this podcast is that because

45:04

podcasts give politicians and journalists a bit more

45:06

space to chat rather than have a sort

45:08

of adversarial

45:11

you know knockabout right? Now

45:18

Ruth and Jess we are winding up.

45:20

Jess what are you doing this weekend?

45:24

I'm gonna get drunk. That's

45:26

the answer for a variety of

45:28

reasons it's my friend Amy's birthday

45:30

not a big birthday but there's

45:32

nobody who organizes a Sporé like

45:34

my mate Amy but also my

45:36

sister-in-law is Persian or Iranian and

45:39

it's Nauru's which is New Year's

45:41

we will be celebrating with her.

45:43

That sounds like a nice weekend

45:45

Ruth what are you doing? I Matthew

45:47

I'm gonna turn into a 1950s housewife this

45:49

weekend so I am making a

45:51

tree bake tonight for taking to a social

45:53

room the tennis club in my village oh

45:56

yes yes I am and then on Saturday

45:58

I am going to take

46:00

address to get altered for a wedding. Oh,

46:02

Stranger Things was really good by the way. Oh, it was

46:04

good. Yeah, yeah, it was excellent. And now, I enjoyed

46:07

it so much, I'm now watching the

46:09

box-up. Have you never watched Stranger Things

46:11

before? I watched it years ago, years

46:14

ago, and now I'm re-watching it, but

46:17

now I'm obsessed, so it's become

46:20

a bit disruptive for me this week, but

46:22

anyway. The other thing I did last week

46:25

was I watched June number one because I

46:27

am going to now watch June number two

46:29

this weekend. And I actually really like June

46:31

number one, so I'm up for it now.

46:35

That's it for today. Thank you for

46:37

listening. We're all going into quite fun

46:39

weekends, I think, after quite a torrid

46:41

week in politics again. But we

46:44

are back next week, but it's on Thursday

46:46

next week because we've got

46:48

Good Friday the day after. I don't

46:50

think we're doing it on Good Friday,

46:52

so download it on Thursday. Thank you

46:55

for listening, and remember, you can WhatsApp

46:57

voice notos on 07934-200-0004 or

47:03

send an email to electoral

47:05

dysfunction at sky.uk. Don't forget, you

47:07

can send us any question you

47:09

want, and I'm really looking forward

47:11

to finding out what you lot

47:13

are going to ask Jess and

47:16

Ruth. I've got some tasty random

47:18

questions to ask them that I

47:20

am storing up. So thanks for

47:22

listening. I hope you enjoyed it,

47:24

and we'll be with you again

47:26

next week. Bye-bye.