members of the national education union will walk out on the 5th and 7th ofjuly. the government says the strikes will cause real damage to pupils. now on bbc news political thinking with nick robinson. rishi sunak is talking rubbish, at least that s what boris johnson says, as a bitter row between the two men that have been simmering for weeks burst into the open. it s just the latest episode of tory infighting that dates back notjust to the fall ofjohnson, but arguably to the fall of margaret thatcher decades ago. my guest on political thinking this weekjoined the conservative party back then, in the early 1990s, he s been close to or an adviser to five of the last seven conservative leaders from john major to rishi sunak. and for much of that time, daniel finkelstein, lord finkelstein has been a columnist for the times newspaper, chronicling the ups and downs of british politics, drawing on his experience of that politics, but also drawing on his family s extraordinary
the next election to tony blair. pretty much. i remember standing outside the cabinet room with andrew robb, who was from a liberal.the liberal party of australia, and he d done some polling, and he was going to go in to see john and tell him what the political situation was. and i pressed him. i wanted to know before he went in. and he used the word that douglas murray, you called it mucked . he said, you re mucked . that was it. it was over. you wrote recently that that can be liberating to admit defeat. well, i had this conversation with a man called jim pinkerton, who d worked for george bush, the elder george bush. and had also worked with a lot of democrats on sort of government reform. and i was working for a think tank. i got him to come over here, and he looked at the political situation and came back, sort of reported back to me and he said, are you going to lose the election? and i said, yes. and he said, and what will you do if you lose the election?
The Honorable Tony Abbott, Leader of the Opposition in Australia’s House of Representatives, discusses America’s global role, the Australia–U.S. relationship, and the importance of the Australia–U.S. security alliance