Hi, I'm Rachel and on today's special New Statesman podcast, Boris Johnson is facing

a vote of no conquerors. How did we get here?

So I'm standing in for a nuke while she takes a well-earned holiday and first thing this

morning, Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee of Backbench Tory MPs, announced

that he'd received enough letters to finally call a vote of no confidence in the Prime

Minister, Boris Johnson. This is taking place between 6 and 8 pm and before that, Boris

Johnson will have the chance to address his MPs in a last ditch attempt to win their support.

Later, I'll speak to our polling expert, Ben Walker, but first, a senior political correspondent

Harry Lambert is with me. Harry, what's the mood like in Westminster?

Hey, so I think, let's just get a sense of the numbers here. You can look at past votes

of no confidence to get a sense of what kind of numbers to think about tonight. And

if you do so, then the numbers are 121 rebels, would be similar to the vote of no confidence

to get to major in 95. 133 tonight would be similar to Theresa May's vote of no confidence

to 2080, and 147 would be similar to that choice in 1990. Now, something like 120 is

I think probably where we're headed for, but I wouldn't be surprised if we got anywhere

between 120 and 140. But if you think back to each of those, those to the confidence,

major didn't manage to survive until the next election, but his party was devastated

in 97 poll. And May had to go within, or announce her resignation within six months and

factor within 48 hours. So I think anything in that range, and that's what people currently

expect, spells real problems for Johnson. And just because he's not probably going to

lose tonight, doesn't mean that he's not toast in the short or medium run.

Let's just zone back a bit and look at how we got here and where this vote of no confidence

...