what conversations were you having with him at the time and was it uncomfortable for you both that he was a personally involved in the story? i think was very upsetting to him what happened to her, she was clearly very upset. but the strength of james is notjust through allegra but through other sources. he has amazing contacts in government. he can tell readers what he thinks is going on and the general drift of the party, what ministers say. they ll talk to him extensively off the record and is very cosy with rishi sunak. and he s close with rishi sunak. he has a real insight, it s important papers give the readers a sense of what s happening through somebody who is incredibly well connected. do you think that the story, partygate, what happened to his wife, has a change his attitude to the government and the way he writes about them? i don t know, i haven t asked him god. i don t know, i haven t asked him god- i don t know, i haven t asked him god. ~ . ~ ., him god. we ve talked
lots of stories i would love to have broken. i think the fte, cameron greensill, thought was a good story. it s interesting because pa rtygate, very few journalists, lots of parties going on a very few journalist knew about it. you had it on your lap in a sense because on saturday, 20th 2020 the times published the story of the political editor, the policy editor and said borisjohnson celebrated his 56th birthday yesterday with a small gathering in the cabinet room, rishi sunak and a group of aides sang him happy birthday before they tucked into a unionjack cake. so back then you had what then became a huge story, how could you print it without realising it was incendiary? we missed it. what you think about that now? it s embarrassing. had you heard about parties at downing street before the mirror and itv publishers scoops? no, not from that when you mention. in that sense, you ve heard of it but not recognised it as a party. i don t we put together, at that time that it was clashing
to the border angola but the authorities then with south africa, they govern southwest africa, now namibia. so i couldn t go up and teach there so i set up a library in the capital. while i was there one of the people i was working with got expelled by the south africans. and he was a stringer for the bbc world service and bbc africa service. hejust handed it to me. i knew nothing about journalism. the only thing i knew was what my father told me, dog bites man is not a story, mann bites dogs is a story. man bites dogs is a story. i had to learn very fast doing broad casts, i think i was terrible, they were really nice at the world service and they encouraged me and so i did a series of interviews and told them what was going on in southwest africa, which was a really interesting time. because as i say, it was apartheid on steroids. it had a large africana and german population who were very hard line. it was a very difficult time
you give up easily. i guess our audience will be very interested in how powerful is the times, if you want to do could you bring borisjohnson down? only through a story that was shocking and that people thought was absolutely unacceptable. you couldn t do it any other way. if we were campaigning that he should go, i don t think that would make any difference, for example. it s the actual stories that change public opinion and the tory parties views. could it also be more subtle than that? if you decided for example, if you backed rishi sunak tomorrow and you did it subtly, so you just started writing articles that painted him in a positive light. do you think that that would swing it? no. and would you do that? no, not at this stage. there could be a stage where you might switch allegiance? yeah, maybe. what would it take? i don t know, we have to see. do you plan to do it anytime soon. we will have to see. interesting, interesting.
the information you get from them isn t. what does he ring to complain about? famously, we did a story saying he was going to get rid of his dog. which i think might have been planted by dominic cummings who wanted to get rid of the dog. this greatly upset the prime minister and carrie and he rang up to complain about that story of all things. anything more serious that he complains about? sometimes coverage, really it s more nonspecific. and when the prime minister calls, do you feel under pressure, it s the prime minister, does it impact what you do? no. and do you speak to him more than you spoke to other prime ministers, teresa may for example? no, about the same. under your watch sunday times broke the story with cash for honours story with allegations of donors to political parties being rewarded. there ve been many scoops sense. why didn t you break partygate? would ve loved to. it was a good scoop, that one.