to the country today, this as johnson has been rocked by a new wave of resignations. joining us now from london, nada bashir. good morning, we ve been following these developments the past few hours. what do we know so far about the reports that johnson will step down? reporter: good morning, christine. just gone 10:00 a.m. here in london and clearly a lot has happened. boris johnson now expected to stand down from his post as prime minister. we are expecting him according to downing street to make a statement in the coming hours. we re also waiting for that lectern to come out here to address the press, give that statement announcing his resignation. we understand that he spoke with the chairman of the 1922 committee, that is the committee of back bench members of parliament here in the conservative party who would oversee the process of both the prime minister resigning and of course that potential vote of confidence. but it hasn t reached that stage. the prime minister n
the list? well, i think the two men who first resigned from cabinet will clearly run, sunak and javik. sunak s star has dimmed in recent times but he feels that he could rise to what he had before the pandemic. and javid could probably send himself as a reasonably safe pair of hands. he s done a lot of jobs in cabinet and hasn t made a mess of any of them. a low bar for some people. a couple people who stayed to demonstrate their loyalty, that was i guess their strategy in the leadership campaign, the foreign secretary and also ben wallace the defense secretary, they will go for it as well. i think that it is up to the conservative party whether it feels that it can go with one of those people who are strongly associated with the boris johnson era, if you like, or whether it wants a complete
significant shift in the conservative party. we ve seen a number of resignations nearing 60 now, mps, government aides all announcing their resignation. the overwhelming theme has been of course questions around the prime minister s integrity, trust in the prime minister. whether he is the right person to lead the conservative party anymore. and we have of course seen the bombshell resignations from his cabinet ministers, some of his closest allies including the former chancellor ritchey sunak who led the way for the snowball effect of resignations. in the last couple hour, we ve also seen the newly appointed chancellor, the number two now, zawahi, issuing a letter publicly calling on the prime minister to step down. so he hasn t resigned, but according to sources close to the situation, we understand that number of cabinet ministers close to the prime minister, loyal allies some of them, spoke to him yesterday calling on him
truss who is the foreign secretary. again the question is will she be able to rally enough support. we know ritchey sunak of course about a month and a half ago had real scrutiny over his wife s tax affairs and that didn t look good particularly considering as he is the richest member of government at a time when of course he is having to stew arrested the economy to a precipitous plunge in living standards and that inflationary spike. zawahi as well might throw his hat into the ring. but he just like the former health secretary have long histories in the business world. so obviously their business interests will come under scrutiny. so it is not just the politics of the individual characters and the people that might rally around them that could count, but also the fact that this is a party that has been in power now for more than a decade, about three terms. what people essentially want to
the ring. people don t know her. people don t know her. but from jeremy hunt through the brexiteers and they obviously will include people like ritchey sunak. javic who is perceived moving at the right time or not depending whether you are a strong boris johnson person or very well-known to us, particularly well-known to you, but they don t resonate like boris johnson. this is one of the reasons that he lasted so long because he had that public appeal and that campaigning ability. so is that still something that everyone is very concerned about going into a potential general election frankly? i think a new prime minister whoever it may happen to be will have probably about a year and a half and therefore it is not the case of we need a name. whether tv, industry, commerce or politics, actually many people recruit somebody who is not like the previous chief