Whips' secrets || On the campaign trail
The Rundown by PoliticsHome
PoliticsHome
4.1 • 105 Ratings
🗓️ 31 May 2024
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
PoliticsHome editor Adam Payne and reporter Nadine Batchelor-Hunt take stock of the first week of the general election campaign, plus broadcaster and former MP Gyles Brandreth and journalist Seb Whale join Alain Tolhurst to discuss their books on the secrets of the Whips' Office.
Sign up to The House's new Friday newsletter from Sienna Rogers rounding up the best of the week’s election campaigns here.
Gyles Brandreth’s republished memoir Breaking the Code is available here.
Pre-order Seb Whale’s new book The Unusual Channels here.
Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced by Nick Hilton for Podot, edited by Laura Silver.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to The Rundown, a podcast from Politics Home. |
| 0:09.8 | I'm your host, Alan Tolhurst, and as election fever takes over Westminster, we're switching gears here on the pod too, and for the next few weeks, we'll be focusing on the campaign, speaking to our reporters out on the trail, as well as pollsters, |
| 0:21.6 | academics, and those politicians fighting it out for our vote come July 4th. |
| 0:25.6 | So on this week's episode, we'll start with a quick chat with Adam Payne, Paul Holmes' newly promoted editor, |
| 0:30.6 | about how the first week of campaigning, since Rishish Tunaq fired the electoral starting gun, has been going. We'll also check in with our reporter, Nadine Bachelor |
| 0:38.0 | Hunt, who covered Kirstarmer's visit to Worcester on Wednesday. And we have a fascinating chat |
| 0:42.3 | I recorded early this week, shedding light on the darkest of parliamentary corners, the whips office. |
| 0:48.6 | Firstly, Adam, congrats on your promotion from political editor to editor. What a time to do. I know your |
| 0:53.8 | head must feel slightly like it's on fire the whole time. But what have you made so far? We made the first week of campaigning. |
| 1:00.9 | Yeah, thanks very much, Lan. I must say that as much as I'm enjoying it and I'm privileged to do it, the first week I felt like I've been in a washing machine. It's been very, very busy. But I'm |
| 1:11.5 | sure I've been busy than have nothing to do. Yes. We're sat recording this on Thursday |
| 1:15.6 | lunchtime. And I think you can sort of divide what's happened so far into two. The first |
| 1:21.7 | few days were pretty shaky for Rishi Sunak. Yeah. It kind of got off to a confusing start when he announced the election |
| 1:29.3 | in the pouring rain. There's a lot of bewilderment among Conservative MPs about why they did that. |
| 1:34.5 | Why did we just move him inside or give him an umbrella or something? Then in the first few |
| 1:41.2 | days of that campaign, it just felt that he was struggling to get any |
| 1:44.9 | momentum. |
| 1:45.7 | We had the gaff when he was stood near the Titanic Museum in Belfast, and he was asked by a local |
| 1:51.6 | reporter, are you, you know, are you leading us in King's ship? |
| 1:54.3 | And then we had the news that Lucy Allen, the former Tory MP, endorsed the reformed |
| 2:00.2 | candidate in her patch. |
| 2:02.3 | The PM needed really a strong start. |
... |
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