this and what is their position in the party? presumably if they give you information a couple of times and you don t run a story, in the end they think, well, this journalists isn t much use to me because i m giving them valuable information but they re not putting it in the public domain. yeah, there s always at risk. i was trying to take a view that you re playing the long game and if someone is insisting on telling you things you got to wonder why they are saying this to you. much trickier is the occasion when you have a source who gives you regular good information and then you get some information that s adverse to that source and you have to make. or you re in danger of losing that source if you run it. ultimately i think you have to run it because ultimately you have to judge the story on the public interest and not whether you re going to mess up a potential future source. but those kind of dilemmas you get all the time in this business ofjournalism, which makes it all the mor
at prime minister s questions today not better. i never like to see an adviser go and cry on doorsteps because actually, the person that went home early and ended up. taking the rap for it. i don t think that s fair either. he says he s sorry for the event of a star for the video and the impression it gives - but there s no story for the party. ido i do not think the public are following i do not think the public are following for i do not think the public are following for that, - i do not think the public are following for that, nor- i do not think the public are following for that, nor the i following for that, nor the journalists following for that, nor the journalists either. - but he has a track record of not saying sorry and he is the prime minister and was mayor of london, something you were involved in. so you ll know that has been a successful political tactic for him. thing is with boris johnson - is people give borisjohnson leeway in the way they never give i any
organisation you like people to consume your content through your own platform. itv has a website and an app and ideally what we would like people to do is go in and read the full story, the full piece ofjournalism has taken a lot of time and effort for the what we decided to do was to release a short clip which gave a flavour of the story so they could understand what they would be going through to read more about. and then the full video, the full context of the article was there on the website to be read in full. and the final question we see being asked a lot is whether this was filmed off a screen or whether it s actually the original video. that s something i can t get into with you, ross. roz. as i was saying earlier, protection of our sources is of the utmost important to us. and that means notjust protecting the source s identity but protecting how material comes into our hands. well, of course you know paul, and everyone listening that at prime minister s questions, this wa
scoops happened with help of pippa and with paul. the first of all, the prime minister s adviser allegra stratton has resigned, she was one of those people in the video, and this is what she said about that resignation. my remarks seemed to make light of the rules, rules that people were doing everything to obey. that was never my intention. i will regret those remarks for the rest of my days and i offer my profound apologies to all of you at home for them. there s allegra stratton explaining her resignation. we also want to look at this story and what it tells us about the broader relationship between government and the press lobby. to help us do that we have katie perrier, director of communications for teresa may when she was prime minister. michael, political commentator for mail plus, and kitty donaldson, the political editor for bloomberg news.
let s start with pippa from the mirror. it was your story which started all of this. when did you first hear that there had been a christmas party in downing street? well, i actually first heard rumours way back injanuary but they were just that. and i wasn t able to substantiate, i tried my best but didn t manage to get there. and about a month ago i got handed what i would describe as a metaphorical brown paper envelope which contained enough evidence in it for me to start asking questions again. so i then spent several weeks speaking to sources about whether a party had taken place and then once i d established that it had, speaking to them about who is at it, what was done at the party, secret santa and the festive games and drinks and nibbles and so on. and then we were just really waiting for a moment that would be the right time to publish. so you come back to the story, you start having lots of conversations building on what you first heard about in january.