in trafalgar square. i reckon this year's is better. feels a bit sort of plumper around the waist, which seems to be the more classic, conical christmas tree shape. anyway, that's about as much analysis as anyone wants on my christmas tree. the problem is, though, the mayor of london, sadiq khan, his visits are getting earlier every year. so you missed him last week. so, he's not here to hear that praise, which he'll be desperate to hear, no doubt. yeah. anyway, let's see what we've got in store on this episode of newscast. hello, it's adam in the studio. and it's chris in the studio. and keeping us company this week are ayesha hazarika from times radio and former labour adviser. hello. hello, hello. do you have a christmas tree? i do. is it girthy? it's plump and full of girth! glad to hear. and also here is will waldon, who's former director of communications for borisjohnson. hello again. hello, everyone. hi, adam? and also when boris was mayor of london. so did you ever have to deal with the christmas tree? i didn't have to deal- with the christmas tree. i have difficulty enough dealing with my own christmas tree, i let alone one in trafalgar square! one is enough. a normal sized one is enough. right. we're going to talk about boris johnson being at the covid inquiry for a second day running. that's his evidence finished now. but first of all, actually, westminster was dominated by another big story today which kind of drew quite a lot of attention away from that in quite a surprising way. but also day two of the fallout from the rwanda plan. yeah. so just remind us where we've got to. so quick recap. this week, the government hoped prior to borisjohnson�*s appearance at the covid inquiry would be dominated politically by them resetting their approach to immigration. so monday, legal migration and their plans for that, and then tuesday, illegal migration and the whole question of this rwanda plan, the idea of sending some migrants to rwanda. home secretary went out to kigali. i went out as a reporter to report on it. there was that sense of and the vibe that was being given off was one of, look, there was all that chaos and noise from the previous home secretary, suella braverman. now we're getting on with delivery and they had, to be fair to them, set out their policies on legal migration on the monday and then this treaty that they've signed with rwanda on tuesday. but then we see the resignation of robertjenrick, the immigration minister, and then this sort of hastily arranged news conference on thursday morning from the prime minister. this prime minister does not like doing news conferences. and why did he do it? because they kind of run out of better ideas. you've got to go out and sell an idea as prime minister, if nobody else is doing, particularly if you've got your former immigration minister saying it's a dud. so that's what he did to try and claim that he's found this really narrow path to trying to make this policy work. but the interesting thing is, even when you speak to people in government and on the conservative back benches who like the idea, they still say, hmm, but will this way actually make it work? because there's a bit when you look in this draught legislation that people will still be able to go to court over being sent to rwanda, perhaps in very, very narrow circumstances and a lot narrower than they currently can. but it's still possible. it is still possible. and politically, the imperative is on trying to get people onto those planes before theelection, ie, very, very quickly in the framework of passing laws and potential legal challenges. so, yeah, that's kind of where we are. ayesha, as a former adviser, press conferences can be good, but hastily arranged ones are rarely good. quite. and also press conferences where you look very tetchy and sort of very, very frustrated and very frazzled as well are not ideal. you know what? let's let newscasters decide whether who's frazzled or tetchy or where he was on that scale. and here's a compilation of him being asked probing questions by chris mason and other editors. are you saying to your mps bluntly on all of this, back me or sack me? what i'm saying, notjust to my mps but to the entire country, _ is that i share their frustration. will next week's vote be treated as a vote of confidence in your government? and will you throw conservative mps out of the party if they defy you? you don't know. but what this vote is about is about confidence in parliament. - you've lost control of your party and this has become a confidence issue, not in parliament, but in you. do you accept that and will you call an election if you lose these votes? what's happening here is we're delivering on what i said. - back to you, ayesha. there was a theme to the questions and the answers there, wasn't there? yeah. and i think what's really interesting is how rwanda hasjust become the absolute flashpoint for the conservative party. it was like a kind of quite out there idea which priti patel came up with back in the day. and it is fascinating how it has become this thing which has just totally dominated the conservative party and there's so many, for something which there is this obsession with, there are also so many unanswered questions like, you know, when you dig into to the detail, there are questions like, you know, could we end up in this ridiculous, unintended consequence where rwanda could send us refugees before we've sent any, you know, migrants out there as well? because the treaty suggests that it's possible. yeah, and with all treaties, so much of this is about the fine print, right. and the idea that also in the treaty, you know, for all this bluster, for all this political capital, you're talking, if things go really, really well, 100 people. so ijust felt like this is something which just... do you remember that documentary about the fyre festival, which was this festival where everything went wrong and the organisers just kept going with it? people are, like, this is a disaster, there's no food, there's no water, there's no accommodation. they were like, fine, just crack on. i feel like this is turning into the sort of political equivalent of the fyre festival! and yes, i'm just thinking about the extreme things people did to get water in that documentary. but let's not delve into that. yeah, will, i mean, how has rishi sunak ended up in this position? because basically, as ayesha was saying, the rwanda policy has sort of become the 2023 version of brexit. and brexit was about the fate of the entire country. yeah, i mean, declaration, i don't like the idea - of conservative governments tinkering with legal- frameworks, you know, period. but they're trying to do that. and i think he's only. got himself to blame. he's put the whole rwanda issuel and the small boats issue so front and centre that nothing is now, nothing else is talked about. i and if you care about immigration, but you don't care about it - in principle terms, you're more worried about cost of living, i you're going to be wonderingl what on earth are they doing? if you do care about immigration, what you're going to be _ looking at is thinking, _ well, the boats are still coming. he says they're down, l but they're still coming. and he hasn't sent anyone to rwanda and it doesn't look like he's— going to be able to. so he's created this mess, unfortunately, himself. i but what staggers me _ is that the conservative party used to be known for its pragmatism, and it'sjust gone, again. - and we're facing this ridiculous prospect of potentially losing l a vote, which would presumably lead to an early general election, - or having another vote of confidence in a prime minister. _ it is becoming ridiculous- and in short order they've got to get their house together. otherwise, it'sjust curtains. well, let's be fair to rishi sunak, and we've given lots of airtime to criticisms of the rwanda policy, here's how he presented this as a win at the press conference today. i so the bill does include what arel known as notwithstanding clauses. these mean that our domestic courts i will no longer be able to use any. domestic or international law, - including the human rights act, to stop us removing illegal migrants. let me just go through the ways that individual illegal _ migrants try and stay. claiming asylum — i that's now blocked. abuse of our modern i slavery rules — blocked. the idea that rwanda isn't safe — blocked. i the risk of being sent to some other country — blocked. - and spurious human rights claims — you'd better believe that _ we've blocked those, - too, because we're completely disapplying all the relevant - sections of the human rights act. some real crowd pleasers there! you'd better believe it! you're like, this is quite technical international law here. it's like a bad game show host, isn't it? blocked, blocked, blocked. i do, picking up on what will said, i think the thing that's extraordinary about this is when you look at an issue that ends up dominating a party like when theresa may became prime minister and of course, brexit became the dominant issue, she didn't choose to raise brexit and make it the dominant issue. it was sort of thrust upon her whether she wanted to or not. but rishi sunak, like a moth to the flame, just keeps coming back to rwanda. there's plenty of other things that he could be talking about. you could make an argument that jeremy hunt and he have actually done some, you know, good work trying to turn the economy around. you know, the inflation is coming down. you know, they could talk a bit more about their industrial strategy, etc, etc. but all roads seem to lead back to rwanda. they did, i mean, in defence of rishi sunak, he did he did inherit the rwanda policy, didn't he? sojunking it would have come with a political cost to some because some would have said, "oh, you've surrendered this, this is an idea, we should see it through". but instead he put| it front and centre. and to be, let's be honest, chris, there are many ideas that he inherited which have just withered on the vine. social care was a big promise that he inherited. we hear nothing about social care now. hsz was a big thing he inherited and he'd said, right, 0k, it's clearly not working. i'm going tojunk it now. levelling up was something which was a great prize that he inherited. so what i can't understand is why he is willing tojust put so much, burn so much political capital on this. and the other thing, which i think is fascinating, given that he has made this centre stage, this big vote, which we think is going to come on tuesday, he's now backing off this being a matter of confidence. he's saying to people, actually, if you vote against us, you won't lose the whip on this. and, you know, and i'm not going to make this an issue. we're not going to call a general election over this. so he's kind of leading everybody up, saying this is the biggest thing that matters to me, but i'm actually not going to make it about confidence in me. immigration is important but is it the defining issue in the next- and chris, when we listen to people like suella braverman, the former home secretary, on the today programme on thursday morning, and she's giving her criticism of this rwanda plan, and then denies it's about her wanting to be prime minister, should we not believe her? and then when we read robertjenrick�*s letter, where he criticises the rwanda plan but doesn't really come up with any alternatives that would work better, and actually he ends with a bit of a rhetorical flourish, it sounds like maybe he would quite like to be prime minister as well. should we should we not believe him? well, i think sort of both things can be true. i mean, i think from robertjenrick�*s perspective, he looked at this bill and just thought, can i authentically be the kind of face and voice for it and go out and take all the questions about it whilst believing in it? and concluded that the answer to that was no, because when the critique would have been put to him, that says, yeah, but hang on a minute, it's still going to get gummed up in the courts so are you really going to get very many people, if any, on a plane before the election? he couldn't conceivably say yes with any conviction because he didn't believe it himself. so in the end, that's just kind of, you know, just a policy dispute. he and suella braverman would say, look, the prime minister has to be much more bold around the whole question of the european convention on human rights and all of that. those who make that argument do accept, though, to make the brexit parallel again, that kind of thing is brexit 2.0. that's a massive conversation that has all sorts of knock on consequences, both in this policy field and loads of others. you know, as is often said but it's worth saying, it's written into the good friday agreement, for instance. so it's incredibly kind of big and complicated. so i think from his perspective, given that he walked rather than was sacked like suella braverman, it was a point ofjust not being able to push ahead with it. if there was to be a vote of confidence in rishi sunak, that's jumping a lot of hurdles, have they been writing letters to the committee?— been writing letters to the committee? ., ., committee? people are speculating about numbers _ committee? people are speculating about numbers and _ committee? people are speculating about numbers and nobody - committee? people are speculating about numbers and nobody knows, | about numbers and nobody knows, other than graeme brady. so, we are in that kind of world again where a lot of folk, both those who are not particularly keen on rishi sunak and those who are fear it happening almost by accident, because you go way of christmas or whatever, conservative mps ponder and moan, and you think, may be on balance i will put the lettering, you're not sure, you put it in, and blimey, it's the 53rd or whatever. i sure, you put it in, and blimey, it's the 53rd or whatever.- it's the 53rd or whatever. i love the fact that — it's the 53rd or whatever. i love the fact that graeme _ it's the 53rd or whatever. i love the fact that graeme brady - it's the 53rd or whatever. i love | the fact that graeme brady says it's the 53rd or whatever. i love - the fact that graeme brady says his standing _ the fact that graeme brady says his standing down, but it's like one lastly. — standing down, but it's like one lastly, lastjob. standing down, but it's like one lastly. last job-— standing down, but it's like one lastly, last job. lastly, last 'ob. and they all go in b hand, lastly, last job. and they all go in by hand, because _ lastly, last job. and they all go in by hand, because it _ lastly, last job. and they all go in by hand, because it could - lastly, last job. and they all go in by hand, because it could be - lastly, last job. and they all go in by hand, because it could be a i lastly, last job. and they all go in i by hand, because it could be a very random day it all happens. right, let's talk about the other big story that people have been looking at on the second screen of their other phone or their other laptop, if you're lucky to have two laptops at westminster, some people do. borisjohnson doing his second day of evidence at the covid inquiry. will, you've spent a lot of time with borisjohnson over the years, we've spent a lot of time asking you about it. but was that a boris johnson that you recognised? like quite serious, quite emotional, quite contrite. ish! and i think that's... you made a very "ish" face there. yeah, i did, did didn't i? and i think that's the point. boris does do contrite, and i think, you know,| he nearly died from this virus, and you saw a very emotional boris johnson this afternoon. when he discussed that, - and i think all of that is genuine. well, let's watch it, and people can can see this emotional borisjohnson. i haven't talked about this before in public. and it goes to to what you were saying earlier about... ..about elderly people. and what you would claim is my indifference to the pandemic. ijust want to remind you that i... when i went into itu, intensive care, i saw around me a lot of people who were not actually elderly, and, in fact, they were middle—aged men, and they were quite like me. and some of us were going to make it and some of us weren't. it was a tough watch, _ and that is the real borisjohnson. he can do contrition, understanding, emotion, empathy, sympathy. - but there's also another boris - johnson, and that was also on show, land that is the boris johnson that| never quite manages to apologise. so i wrote down a couple of things. we always hear from him, "i didn't say it or i did but others were saying it too," _ or "i take responsibility, but. it wasn't as it's been reported." and that's the problem, is that there is a level of contrition, - and that boris johnson i is the real boris johnson, but so is the boris. johnson that i know will have said, "let it rip." there is a conflict - at the heart of boris, and this is the way that he operates. i so i think what we saw- over the last couple of days was he generally managed to keep it in check, - and i think that's very- much about the audience. it's not a bunch of mps| on a select committee, it is the families of the bereaved, and he was clearly well coached in that — who are sitting just there. and it would have been very hard i for them and very hard for him, | you know. — he absolutely respected that. but what you got throughout was the sense that - he wasn't quite owning the apology, and there were a couple of- really interesting things yesterday, when he talked about, _ "in margaret thatcher's government, if they had had whatsapp, _ it would have been just as fruity, any government would have acted the same." _ "and i know you've heard from all my advisers - slagging me off about my competence, but they were just stressed." _ and that'sjust hokum, it'sjust rubbish, - and boris knows it is, and he's come here - and he's almost pulled out, because he hasn't attacked anyone personally, - and he's kind of saying there was a failure, . and i take responsibility for that, _ but by the way, - it was a collective failure. and i think this is all. about resetting the dial on his own reputation. this is about pitch—rolling for the future, _ not for a political comeback or anything like that, - butjust him being able to say, "yes, i get it" _ the problem is, _ i think that the way that he talks sometimes betrays the fact that he both gets it - and he doesn't get it, . and that's the problem. what was it? "a disputatious culture is better than a quietly acquiescent one." which is quite a defence! isn't that our description on iplayer? from the same man who said . that there wasn't a toxic culture at the heart of number ten, and there clearly was, and he knows that. i and this is the problem, i all of this on boris's reputation. was done way before this inquiry. it was the fact that he told i us none of the parties happened and then they did, and got himself. i in such a mess over that stuff, i which has canned his reputation. and so he's come here - and he's kind of said, you know, "oh, i liked challenge from them, and the only thing i could tell you| is that it was probably a bit male, but it definitely wasn't toxic." i the whole reason that it imploded was that boris chose people that he |couldn't control or wouldn't control| and wouldn't lean inl and lead and inquire, and that's why we're in the mess that he got himself into. - what i found quite strange watching it is that he is an alpha male, right? and this is going to get a bit of pop psychology now, but the whole time he was like almost like a bystander, based on his evidence, like, "oh, they were telling me this, and it was very hard to understand what they were sa