Alex

• “The gap between theory and reality is often wide. Phase two has begun unpromisingly.”
• “Is he, as Kemi Badenoch put it at Prime Minister's questions this week, In office, but not in power.”
• “The journey from five MPs to 300 plus at the next election should be required to put Nigel Farage into Downing Street is the kind of leap that hasn't been made in an awfully long time, if indeed ever, in British politics.”
• “it's the Prime Minister's judgment that is the issue here much more than it is Peter Mandelson's judgment.”
• “it is always easier to blame the advisors than to blame the monarch himself. But most of the time, if there's a problem with the advisors, that is actually a reflection of the problem with the monarch itself.”
• “If Keir Starmer was a factional leader, that would be fine.”
• “So it's a government that is all things toward people and therefore absolutely nothing.”
• “it is never a good thing when you are resetting your Government for the reset to require a reset.”
• “the mere fact that we are even entertaining such speculation at this stage in the parliament is the real story there.”
• “the difference between a conviction politician and one who is a manager who doesn't like management, which is one of the problems with Keir Starmer.”
• “I still think it is more likely than not, but it is no longer completely inconceivable that he would be replaced… I think the chances have gone up from sort of 5 % to 25 % if I had to put numbers on it.”

Bernard

• “Is the problem the Prime Minister himself? And I think with every passing month that becomes absolutely clear that the issue is indeed the Prime Minister himself.”
• “there is no such thing as Starmerism. He doesn't have any real ideological anchors within the Labour and Trade Union movement.”
• “this is a Prime Minister who... can't even sack a cabinet minister properly… These are not the actions of somebody who is on top of the job.”
• “I am increasingly of the view that he can't change because he doesn't have the political skill set and that at some point in this parliament the PLP will go into revolt.”
• “that now becomes a potentially very embarrassing visit… which would turn the visit into potentially a diplomatic disaster.”
• “At the end of the day, this was a decision of the Prime Minister. And therefore the key question, it's always that cliched questions, what did he know about Mandelson and when did he know it?”
• “Mr. Mandelson seems to have a penchant for people who are stinking rich.”
• “The content of some of those emails are on some levels beyond embarrassing and on other levels, plain revolting… and yet he's to be the British Ambassador.”
• “what they cannot accept is that this is all self-inflicted and a lot of it is self-inflicted in such a way where the current lot look every bit as incompetent and every bit as sleazy as the last lot.”
• “the buck stops with the guy at the top. The buck stops with the prime minister.”
• “you have to entertain the possibility that Reform UK might, might win a general election.”
• “and the parliamentary party will have its collective head and its collective hand and it will, I think at some point say, he has to go.”
• “both Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch will not lead the respective parties at the next general election.”

Focussing on UK, Scottish and Global politics, if you like other great political podcasts like The Rest is Politics, The News Agents, Newscast, Questions Time, Holyrood Sources, Planet Holyrood, The Stooshie, The Steamie, Scotcast, Americast etc etc then The Ponsonby and Massie Podcast could be a great show to add to your list of favourites.

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