 If yesterday was one of the most shameful days in parliament in recent memory, today was surely the most embarrassing. After whipping Tory MPs to abolish the independent standards committee, today Boris Johnson was forced into a screeching U-turn. Two hours later, the crooked MP that Johnson had tried to save resigned. It's been a remarkable 24 hours and to take you through it blow by blow, I'm joined on this unscheduled episode of Tiskey Sour by Ash Sarkar. Ash, it is such a pleasure to be joined by you for the second time this week. I'm so lucky. There's going to be three times in total and I'm just thinking, are you trying to find excuses to hang out with me? Because you could just ask, Michael. I just, I prefer it when other people are watching. I'm kind of kinky like that. If you haven't already, do hit subscribe. We go live every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7pm and the most important reason to subscribe is in case we do these emergency shows because otherwise, you will miss them. Let's get straight into this. On last night's Tiskey Sour, we explained why Boris Johnson's decision to abolish the independent standards committee instead of following its advice was so outrageous. The row concerned Owen Patterson, a former Tory minister who had been found to have lobbied for two companies who paid him over £100,000 per year on top of his MP salary. The independent standards commissioner judged this to have been a severe breach of lobbying rules and so suggested a 30-day suspension that was agreed to by the cross-party standards committee. But in response, instead of suspending Patterson, the Tories whipped their MPs to abolish the standards committee and replace it with one on which they would have an in-built majority. It was indefensible. Of course, that didn't stop certain MPs defending it this morning. Business Secretary Quasi Quarteng was sent out to bat for the government. So it wasn't... It's not about the rights and wrongs of what Owen Patterson said or did or how he was paid. I think the process is something that we want to look at. The fact is he had no right of appeal and we feel that in terms of parliament people should have a right of appeal as they do in most employments throughout this country. So as far as I know, because I've been here all week as you appreciate it, as far as I know and I've read the issue about the issue and been told about it, the vote yesterday was all about, you know, getting a proper process and getting some sort of right of appeal that MPs of all parties can rely on in a case like this. It's not about the rights and wrongs of what Owen did or didn't do. Now, I'm sure even Quasi Quarteng knew that what he was talking was complete bullshit there, but just to make it completely clear, it is about Owen Patterson. It was about Owen Patterson because the complaint about appeals only arose when he was found to have broken the rules. It wasn't a coincidence that vote happened yesterday. Second, in an ordinary job, if that's what we're measuring MPs against, you wouldn't normally work a second job which pays you 100,000 pounds per year. This comparison doesn't work. By the way, there also is an appeals process, but we'll get to that later. That wasn't all Quarteng said because while he was oh so concerned about the job security of his fellow MPs, he gave less regard to that of the independent standards commissioner who had found Patterson guilty. I think it's difficult to see what the future of the commissioner is given the fact that we're reviewing the process and we're overturning and trying to reform this whole process, but it's up to the commissioner to decide her position. The idea that it was the standards commissioner, Catherine Stone, who should resign as opposed to the MP who broke the rules was not credible. I'm sure Quarteng understood that. And he was presumably left fuming when after being forced into that humiliating interview, the government undertook a screeching U-turn. This was Jacob Rees-Mogg speaking in the commons at around midday. I'm also aware that last night's vote has created a certain amount of controversy. It is important that standards in this house are done on a cross-party basis. The house voted very clearly yesterday to show that it is worried about the process of handling these complaints and that we would like an appeal system, but that change would need to be on a cross-party basis and that is clearly not the case. While there is a very strong feeling on both sides of the house that there is a need for an appeals process, there is equally a strong feeling that this should not be based on a single case or applied retrospectively. I fear last night's debate conflated the individual case with the general concern. This link needs to be broken. Therefore, I and others will be looking to work on a cross-party basis to achieve improvements in our system for future cases. We will bring forward more detailed proposals once there have been cross-party discussions. Fabulous television. Rees-Mogg there spoke as if the conflation of an alleged need for a change to a process, a disciplinary process, and the specific case of a corrupt MP was something that was only realised overnight. They couldn't have worked it out yesterday when they decided that that would be their position. What that ignores, of course, is that that was precisely what everyone had been screaming about since the moment the stitch-up was suggested. Of course, credit to Rees-Mogg. As ever, he is not someone who shows shame easily. Ash, we'll go in a moment to Peterson's next move. First though, what the hell were the government thinking? This is one of the most dramatic U-turns yet, isn't it? I mean, you're right. It is a really dramatic U-turn. And in terms of making sense of it, I think later on in the show, we're going to go into what perhaps were the real underlying reasons for trying to so thoroughly discredit the work of the Standards Committee, get it reformed, and even have quasi-quarten go out and do the media round and suggest that Catherine Stone should reconsider her position. I think that there are some underlying reasons for that. But I think this is part of the general pattern that we see in this government in an attempt to curtail the means by which they can be held accountable. They want to cut down on press accountability. That's why you see them gunning for the BBC so hard whenever someone does anything other than lodge a tongue firmly up. Boris Johnson's asked, oh, you get all of this sort of howling and screaming about impartiality. I think that you have attempts to restrict the methods of democratic accountability. This talk about imposing a first pass or post electoral system in regional and mayoral elections rather than the other kinds of election, other kinds of voting system, which mean that you don't always get a Tory winner. And you've also got now the attempt, I think, to quite nakedly undermine parliament and the checks and balances that exist within the Palace of Westminster to hold a peace to account. When it comes to Owen Patterson's punishment of a 30 day suspension from parliament, this really was a slap on the wrist. If you look at the findings of the standards committee, it says that his work lobbying on behalf of, was I think, Lin's country foods and randocks was an egregious breach of lobbying rules. We're not talking about somebody who made an error in a way where, you know, they didn't understand the rules or it wasn't clear. It was a clear and flagrant breach of lobbying rules and a 30 day suspension for that undermining of a democratic principle that your MP should only be paid in service of you and not in service of corporate interests at 30 day suspensions, paid holiday. An absolutely ridiculous punishment, but even that was too much for the conservatives. It represented, I think, too much accountability, too much independence, I think, from the independent standards committee and they simply couldn't put up with it. No, I think you are right that even that 30 days is just a slap on a wrist. I mean, I think it's the figures here that make this such an outrageous story. You know, if he took and taken, you know, a couple of grand from a company for some advice, you know, one period in time a couple of years ago and then he arranged a meeting later on, you know, you shouldn't do that, but I think we could have said, oh, you know, these things happen. If he's getting paid 100,000 pounds a year and then is organizing meetings for them, it's a very different story. Let's move on to Owen Patterson and what he did this afternoon. So despite the previous concern expressed for Owen Patterson and his welfare by Tory ministers, their compassion didn't go as far as to tell him about the U-turn concerning his fate before they announced it publicly. This was Joe Coburn on Politics Live. Once Jacob Reese Mogg had stood up in the House of Commons, the leader of the House of Commons and announced that the government was ditching its original plans. I spoke to him briefly. I called him to get his reaction before we came on air and despite the significance of this and the impact it will have on him personally because there will now be a vote on his suspension. He didn't know anything about it. I mean, the government hadn't told him. Well, that would suggest the speed at which the government moved this morning. And I think, as I said before, that was indicative of the fact that we still saw a government minister doing the broadcast rounds this morning, still defending what, you know, many were describing as indefensible this morning. So I think the government has moved at huge speed. I think it's going to be very difficult for Owen Patterson, given all of the very personal things that are wrapped up in this particular case. And I'm sure that we'll hear more from him over the weekend about what he intends to do, given, you know, how vociferously he's defended himself at, particularly in relation to this case. You heard that Caroline Wheeler from the Sunday Time speculating that Owen Patterson would be deciding his future over the weekend. Of course, we didn't have to wait that long at 2.40 p.m. Patterson, put out the following statement announcing his resignation. I have today, after consultation with my family and with much sadness, decided to resign as the MP for North Shropshire. The last two years have been an indescribable nightmare for my family and me. My integrity, which I hold very dear, has been repeatedly and publicly questioned. I maintain that I am totally innocent of what I have been accused of and I acted at all times in the interests of public health and safety. It goes on. Far, far worse than having my honesty questions was, of course, the suicide of my beloved and wonderful wife, Rose. The last few days have been intolerable for us. Worst of all, we're seeing people, including MPs, publicly mock and deride Rose's death and belittle our pain. I do not want my wife's memory and reputation to become a political football. I will remain a public servant, but outside the cruel world of politics. They were, of course, extracts from the resignation letter, not hit in its entirety. It was, to my mind, a very odd resignation letter because I hadn't actually seen anyone dragging the reputation of his late wife through the mud, nor anyone mocking or deriding her or questioning her integrity. Obviously, a tragedy has occurred and I feel for Owen Patterson because of that, but this particular controversy, this row about lobbying, has always seemed like a clear case of a conflict of interest that pertains only to Owen Patterson. His wife, as far as I can tell, was not implicated and I haven't really seen anyone suggest she was. So it really only seems that it's Owen Patterson who's bringing her into it. It seems really, really bizarre to me. And that's not just, obviously, tragic situation. He's in a difficult position, but Ash, what did you make of that letter? I mean, I've got to agree with you. I haven't seen any MPs publicly mocking or deriding the tragic and, I imagine, devastating suicide of Owen Patterson's wife. Rightly so. That would be just a horrible thing to do. And also, let's face it, it would be politically unstrategic. Any Labour or SNP MP who publicly mocked and derided somebody's late wife would be hauled over coals for it. So I've not seen any evidence of this, quite the opposite. The only people I've seen trying to connect Owen Patterson's wife to this conversation about egregious breaches of lobbying rules and the investigation by the Standards Committee have been Tory MPs, I think, quite cynically wielding it to try and muddy the waters and to try and get people to back off from Owen Patterson. Now, grief is, I mean, I think lots of people watching this will know from experience, grief is an absolutely debilitating experience and you certainly wouldn't wish it on anybody, but it is a separate issue to how you conduct yourself in a public office, particularly when you are somebody with an awful lot of responsibility, you are receiving an awful lot of money from your second and third job outside of being an MP and then lobbying on behalf of those companies in a way which is plain and obvious to every sitting MP is against the rules and a clear conflict of interest. These are two wholly separate issues and I think that it's been quite cynically wielded by conservative MPs and indeed Owen Patterson to try and muddy the waters. It's also worth mentioning that I'm not saying I necessarily agree with this option, but there was a potential option on the table which was to say that we accept the recommendations of the committee, but at the same time for compassionate grounds because this guy's going through a difficult period in his life and he's already been through enough, we're going to put it on record that he has behaved in these improper ways, but at the same time we're going to give him a lenient punishment because of the state he finds himself in. Now, I don't have a strong opinion on whether that would or would not have been appropriate in this case, but that was not what was being debated anyway. What the conservatives did instead, that was an option, that was an amendment put forward, but instead they voted for the Andrew Ledson amendment which was to say, let's just abolish the standards committee altogether. It had nothing to do with compassion in that respect. It was all about overriding the rules. I'm going back to that statement and this idea that there were MPs mocking and deriding Rose Patterson's tragic suicide. I sort of asked about this on Twitter. I've had a bit of a Google search to see what it could possibly be referring to and this from yesterday's PMQs seems to be the closest thing to fitting the bill. The issue in this case, the issue in this case which involved a serious family tragedy, Mr Speaker, is whether a member of this House had a fair opportunity to make representations in this case. Now, you heard there, Boris Johnson talk about a serious family tragedy and you heard some people making a groaning. But to me, that was definitely not mocking that woman's suicide. It was not calling her integrity into question. What that was expressing was a frustration by Boris Johnson cynically deploying a tragedy to try and cover one of his political allies from a charge of corruption. It wasn't anything to do with the grief of Owen Patterson's family that was being jeered at there. That was purely the cynical deployment of that from Boris Johnson. I mean, I imagine, Ash, is that your interpretation of that clip is similar. I can't really see how that clip could justify what Owen Patterson wrote in his resignation letter. No, I think you're absolutely bang on there, Michael. I think it's people groaning because it is an obviously cynical attempt to wield a tragic, devastating and very emotive personal family bereavement in order to deflect criticism and accountability from a breach of lobbying rules. Again, these are two completely separate things. I think there's also been talk from Owen Patterson trying to connect his wife's suicide to the fact that the investigation was going on at all. And again, I'm not going to pretend that I know anything about Owen Patterson, his wife, Rory's Patterson, or the circumstances of her death. But again, it seems to me to be, I think even if that was the case, would you want to publicly say that and face the accusations of cynically wielding your wife's untimely and tragic death in order to deflect from an investigation into your own financial and professional practices? No, you wouldn't. So I don't think that the people who have been misusing this poor woman's memory are Labour or opposition MPs. I think that's coming from Owen Patterson and his colleagues on the Conservative benches. One last thing that I'd like to add to this is that this has again become something of a pattern from the government benches after the brutal slaying of Sir David Amos at his constituency surgery. One of the first things that we've seen is a discussion about what constitutes abuse of MPs. Now, that went far beyond credible threats, racial abuse, sexist abuse, targeted harassment, to MPs saying that constituents quite politely taking them to task for voting down the amendment which would have stopped corporations pumping more sewage into rivers, saying that that counted as abuse. You had this absurd discussion about whether screenshots from the website they work for you, which showed an MP's voting record were a form of abuse if they were essentially a form of misinformation because they didn't take into account whipping operations. I think that there is a concerted attempt here to utilise and misuse something which shouldn't be taken as a joke or used for political advantage, which is the untimely deaths of actual human beings, people's parents, people's loved ones, and saying we're going to use that as a form of armour to protect the government from difficult questions, from being held to account, from the standards that should apply equally to everybody in public life. And that makes me quite queasy. I don't know about you, Michael, but it makes me really quite nauseous. It makes me very queasy. I mean, there is one level in which I am a bit worried about Owen Patterson. And I say this because if a friend of mine, and I don't normally find friends in a similar situation to this, but who was going through a grieving process and had been found to have done some wrongdoing and the response to that wrongdoing, which was clear and the facts aren't really contested, is to take 30 days out of your job or whatever. I'd be like, don't fight this. You did it for a start. There probably won't be a by-election because people feel a bit sorry for you at the moment. And this case isn't particularly well known. Why don't you take that time away from parliament? Have some time to yourself. Stop thinking about politics. Take a holiday. You've been through so much at the moment. Do all of those things. Instead, the advice he's received is fight this till the end. Fight this as hard as you can go, knowing that that would shower down this huge wave of controversy on this man who is already apparently in a bit of a vulnerable situation. So it just, it seems to me that he is not getting the advice of good friends, but it is getting the advice of potentially political opportunists as to why it would be opportunistic to get him to fight this battle. That's what we will be covering next in one moment. First of all, a couple of comments. Joshua Youngman with a $10 donation. Thank you very much. Haven't been able to watch live recently, but just want to say how happy I am that you are back on YouTube. Ash might be my football nemesis, but you are all my go-to source for leftist politics. Thank you for that very kind comment. We're glad to hear you are able to watch live for once. And thanks to Louis Miles for a super chat and zig out. Well done, Navarra. Always highlighting the corruption of this government. Thank you for all of those super chats. As ever, you can also put your questions and your comments on the hashtag Tiskey Sour. Boris Johnson's decision to defend his crooked colleague, Owen Patterson, has seriously damaged his government. So why did he take the risk? The simplest explanation would be that Boris Johnson was defending a friend and was willing to run roughshod over the rules to get him off the hook. But there's a problem with that narrative. Boris Johnson is famously a man who doesn't understand interpersonal loyalty. We then might have to look for a deeper motive. And on that front, Boris Johnson's former closest ally has his own ideas. Dominic Cummings tweeted, part of the point of yesterday is the removal of Kay Stone. Most media ignored S. Walters stories where he carries wallpaper in the PM's illegal donations because Carrie hands out so many leaks and exclusives. Yesterday was really about the PM and his own allies regarding illegal money, not Owen Patterson. He then goes on, Guy could only do cover-up by not interviewing those who know what actually happened in 2020 with the fake Blind Trust secret illegal donations. If EC, which is the Electoral Commission, interviews people with perjury charges hanging, the Prime Minister will be screwed. Now, there's a hell of a lot referenced in those tweets and it's not particularly easy to understand. It's in sort of Dominic Cummings' language, his style of tweeting, which involves lots of technical terms and abbreviation. So I'm gonna unpack them for you. So Kay Stone is Catherine Stone, the standards commissioner. I'm gonna put her to one side because we're gonna talk about her more in one moment. S. Walters also mentioned is Simon Walters. He's a Daily Mail journalist who broke the story about the refurbishment of Boris Johnson and Carrie Simmons' Downing Street flat. This scoop, if you don't remember it or if you need reminding, involved Boris Johnson getting wealthy Tory donors to pay to refurbish his flat, but then channeling the money via the Conservative Party. The donations were not declared until after the media found out and it became this big public ferrari. That meant it potentially broke electoral law and it led to many very reasonable charges of a cover-up. The guide referred to in the second tweet is Lord Christopher Geith. He's the former private secretary to the Queen who was appointed by the government to investigate the donations into Johnson's flat. At the time, we said it was a bit ridiculous that someone appointed by the government was investigating the government. Dominic Cummings clearly thinks there was a cover-up going on there as well. Finally, the EC referred to is the Electoral Commission. They were the second body charged with investigating the shady donations other than Lord Geith. The Electoral Commission, unlike parliamentary committees or these advisors, these appointees, has legal power to mandate witnesses to give evidence. They haven't used those powers yet. That segues nicely into a couple more tweets Cummings put out. So he then tweeted in a separate flat, Fred. One simple thing, even the Dud Starmer should be able to manage today, right to the Electoral Commission demanding that they interview those in number 10 with knowledge of PM's illegal donations, including the infamous wallpaper WhatsApp group with perjury charges for those shown to lie. Yesterday was a preemptive strike by the Prime Minister on the Electoral Commission and Stone. Tory MPs are just expendable cannon fodder. This is about trying to keep secret the cover-up earlier this year on his illegal donations and lies to Geith and the Cabinet Secretary about it all. Hashtag, follow the money. So he's saying that what needs to happen right now, what Boris Johnson is really terrified about is the Electoral Commission getting people to answer questions under oath about his dodgy dealings last year in 2020 when it came to funding the refurbishment of his flat. The one person referenced in those tweets, we haven't introduced properly yet, but who is key to this story is Catherine Stone. She is the commissioner employed by Parliament, so not by the government, by Parliament, with the responsibility of investigating wrongdoing by MPs. It was her decision that Parliament on Wednesday overrode, and it's her who quasi-quarteng this morning suggested should consider her position. So she's the most obvious person who this whole sordid affair was intended to oust. So when it comes to who Catherine Stone is, the Guardian had a decent profile of her. So they write, Stone was born in Derby and went to school in nearby Belpa before taking a degree in sociology and a master's in women's studies at Loughborough University. She has a long history of tackling politically contentious issues. See, she previously served as the commissioner for victims and survivors in Northern Ireland with the delicate task of tackling the legacy of the troubles. Stone was also a commissioner for the Independent Police Complaints Commission, overseeing investigations, including into the Rotherham Force's failure to tackle child sex abuse. She began her working life caring for children with disabilities and went on to run the charity Voice UK, which represents people with disabilities who have experienced crime or abuse. She was given an OBE in 2007. Now, the thing that that introduction to Catherine Stone makes me think is she has potentially everything the Conservative Party hates. She also seems highly qualified for her job. So remember the person that Boris Johnson appointed to investigate him was a previous private secretary to the royal family. Establishment, through and through, someone who is probably gonna use a light touch when it comes to holding the powerful to account. This person potentially, a little bit more risky for Boris Johnson. The key bit in that profile though is the following. In her current post, and perhaps most relevantly given Downing Street's interest in the Paterson case, Stone has found herself investigating the prime minister's personal finances. She found against him over a free holiday he took in mustique courtesy of a Tory donor because he, quote, did not make sufficient inquiries to establish the full facts about the funding arrangements for his free accommodation either before his holiday as he should have done or in 2020, unquote. However, Brian's committee subsequently sought additional information from the prime minister and the donor in question, the car phone warehouse founder, David Ross, concluded Johnson and he concluded Johnson had correctly declared the luxury stay. The Guardian Go On Johnson is known to have been irked by the investigation into the funding of his 2019 Christmas holiday, which was one of a series into his financial affairs. One thing I wanna mention there quickly because it's jumped out to me is that what people like Kwazi Kwartang, what Boris Johnson, what all of the conservatives have been saying over the past 24 hours is the reason why we need to abolish the standards commissioner and replace them with another and the standards committee is that there is no process of appeal. And they say the evidence here is though, even though there is initially a report written by the commissioner and then her findings go to the committee, they say the committee just rub a stamp it. So it's not a proper appeal process because they just say yes to whatever the commissioner said. We've got here an obvious example of them actually working like an appeal process. So the commissioner said one thing, Boris Johnson appealed to the committee and they overturned that decision. So there already is an appeal process and it seems to be working. You can see why he wants to get rid of Catherine Stone who seems like someone who is interested in holding politicians to account. Ash, what's your take? Is the real story of the past 48 hours Boris Johnson's commitment to taking out anyone that could possibly hold him to account? The short answer is yes. The long answer is yes, but longer. When it comes to Dominic Cummings, our favourite post-government chatty patty, there's a couple of pinches of salt you need to bear in mind. One is he has his own well televised history of trying to wriggle out of accountability. The embarrassing pantomime of Barnard Castle and driving to test my eyesight, he's had his own part to play in terms of the weakening of standards and methods of accountability at the heart of government. The second thing is what we know is that Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain who were at the top of the Downing Street comms and strategy operation very much blame Kerry Johnson for them having to leave Downing Street. They sort of see it as a power struggle between Kerry on one side, the vote leave law on the other, and Kerry, because she has the ear of the Prime Minister, she is his wife, ultimately won out. The bone of contention there was the role of Allegra Stratton, whether or not she should get this role of Downing Street spokesperson for having televised press briefings. And it's funny that even after Kerry and team Allegra won what happened to Allegra Stratton, what happened to that very expensive Downing Street briefing room, it got scuttled. And instead she became the Prime Minister's COP26 spokesperson. So make of that what you will. So two pinches of salt in terms of, you know, why Dominic Cummings would be going so hard on getting Kerry Johnson in the frame and this matter of the flat refurbishment at Downing Street. However, the behavior of the government when it comes to really trying to and failing to knock out Catherine Stone by discrediting the course of action and the ruling about Owen Patterson, I think does suggest that there is something that the Prime Minister is trying to hide. You have this business of the holiday mystique claiming that, you know, he didn't know who paid for it at first. He then had Kerry and Boris staying at the luxury villa in Marbella, which was owned by the Goldsmiths and the holiday was paid for by the Goldsmiths. I personally don't think that a Prime Minister should be receiving such lavish gifts of holidays and villas and stays on private islands because if there's no such thing as a free lunch, Michael, there's certainly no such thing as a free villa or a free stay on a private island. So I do think that there's something in this that there is something in the Prime Minister's own financial arrangements that he is desperately trying to hide, that he certainly doesn't want to be pulled out into the open and Catherine Stone is somebody who throughout her career has been not only incredibly diligent and rigorous, but has been quite tough on MPs in a way which is, I have to say, nonpartisan. So Catherine Stone was quite central to the investigation of Keith Vaz, particularly that business of trying to obtain cocaine, to give to male sex workers. And in her report, Catherine Stone was absolutely excoriating of Keith Vaz, not simply in terms of what it was he was alleged to do, but for his lack of cooperation with the investigation and for trying to spin a tail, which she found at times, stretching the bounds of plausibility and being completely incredible. So as much as the Conservatives might try and impugn her independence and say, oh, she's just got it in for us because we're the government. No, she's been pretty tough on labor MPs as well. That's why they're scared of her. She's truly independent. She's capable of being tough on MPs and she is single-minded in her desire to hold them to account. I think that's all very persuasive. I would also say, I do think the wallpaper thing, probably that is where the real point of danger is for Boris Johnson, because I get the impression, and as I said, I can't say this definitively, but I get the impression that the musty holiday, that the holiday in the south of Spain with Zach Goldsmith, they're both quite distasteful. These are very well-paid people. They should be able to pay for their own holidays. If they wanted to live remotely like the people they govern, they would use their own 80K salaries to go on holiday. So I find it very distasteful they do that. My impression is it's kind of within the rules, though, to do that, as long as you declare it, I would completely overturn those rules. I don't think you should be able to get paid 100,000 pounds by a testing company like Owen Patterson did. But I get the impression rules weren't broken. I think when it comes to the flat where Boris Johnson tried to set up a blind trust, because I want to do up this flat, we really need 200 grand to do it. How am I gonna possibly get this? Let's do something that's really untransparent and that is being investigated by the electoral commission. That seems like where there could have been laws broken. The rules already have way too much leeway for what I would consider corruption. But this, I think, potentially also broke the rules, which is why I think, while I accept everything you've said about Dominic Cummings being somewhat of a biased participant in all of this, he's not exactly a neutral observer. I think he is probably onto something when it comes to that Downing Street flat. Let's go to the next part of this story after going to a couple of tweets during the Fox Tweets on the hashtag TiskeySour lovingtonightshow, glad you're lovingtonightshow. I have to say, I'm really enjoying it. Sometimes when a big story breaks on one of my non-Tiskey days, it's sort of like, oh, it's such a shame we don't have a live show or I'm gonna have to go into the studio today. I was kind of delighted when all this happens, I have to say. Baz Kams with a five self-servatives, very well put, and Angela Leach, I love Ash. We all love Ash. Right, let's go on. The Owen Patterson affair has shone our Tory government in an awful light, but it's not only Tory MPs who have come off badly. The past 48 hours has also exposed some of the worst tendencies of parts of Britain's press. Most obviously, this pertains to the most senior journalist in the country, the BBC political editor, Laura Koonsburg. Koonsburg, as this story was breaking, as this row was erupting on Wednesday and before the enormous public outrage which forced Johnson to U-turn, tweeted the following. Senior MP says they've just been ordered by Whips to back the ledson amendment. This is a proper Westminster village story, but it's really important if you care about how MP's actions and behaviour is monitored. Now that is a really embarrassing, because this is someone who is supposed to have a real sense of what is and what isn't a big political story. That's literally her job. She saw what has become the biggest political story of the year. Obviously, there are bigger stories, COVID, climate, et cetera, but the biggest political row of the year. And she said, oh, it's a bit of a Westminster village story. This one, you're probably not gonna be interested in this unless you're a real politics bod. 24 hours later, it's set the public conversation alight and the government have been forced into an embarrassing U-turn. Koonsburg did this morning return to Twitter somewhat with her tail between her legs. Let's go to this tweet. Blowback to yesterday is intense. One Tory insider says, people are going absolutely mad at what looks to many like a terrible calculation. Turns out there were lots of politics bods in the country. If we are to accept Laura Koonsburg's previous analysis. A certain newspaper also didn't shower itself in glory. Spot the odd one out in this morning's front pages. So you can see here, the Guardian went with PM accused of corruption as rules on sleaze torn up. The Times went with Tory's rebel over vote to block MP's suspension. And the Daily Mail went with shameless MPs sink back into sleaze. The Telegraph though, let's look what their lead story was. NHS staff won't have to be jabbed this winter. So the paper which most slavishly follows the lead from the Conservatives and of course, who used to employ Boris Johnson, entirely ignoring the biggest political scandal of the year. Ash, neither Koonsburg nor the Telegraph have come off at all well in this story. Do you think they're gonna be both feeling a little bit embarrassed that they sort of hide themselves to the idea that this wasn't a big story that it might just blow over? I think if obsequious lobby journalists and pravda for the home counties, i.e. the Telegraph, were capable of feeling any sort of shame, their practices wouldn't be as egregiously servile in the face of power as they have been for quite some time now. This is by no means the most embarrassing thing they've ever done. It's just the most recent inner catalogue of failures to live up to the most basic purpose of journalism, which is hold the powerful to account without fear or favor. I think that the Laura Koonsburg tweet, the initial downplaying of the story, oh, this is a proper Westminster village story, this is really revealing either of a deliberate attempt to manage the public reception of what is quite a scandalous story or indicative of being so bad at reading the public mood and bad at taking the political temperature that she probably shouldn't have a job as senior as political editor of BBC News. It's got to be one or the other, because you could put it another way, which is the expense of scandal, which was what, I guess around 2010, 2019. That could have been just seen as, oh, this is a proper Westminster village story, this. And it wasn't. I still remember the two grand duck island. It is lodged in my brain, like nothing can get rid of it. Stories can be as big or as significant as journalists want to make them by how much they pop on about them. Brexit was a matter of sovereignty and fishing rights. It became the defining political division of the last few decades. So I don't buy when journalists say, oh, well, this clearly has no cut through or this doesn't matter to anyone. Either it means that they are so caught up in the herd mentality of the Westminster lobby. They're so aloof and so distant from what people think that they can't actually access it, or they're deliberately trying to make what could be quite a difficult story for the establishment, for the government, or whoever it is, trying to make that go away. And I guess I would just wrap up by saying this because I was talking to somebody this morning about, is there any other profession on the planet as self-deluded as the journalist of the Westminster lobby? Because I do think that they truly believe that they are noble warriors in the quest for truth, crucial intermediaries between the public and the powerful, and they are indeed holding the powerful to account. Now, to anybody with half a molecule of critical capacity within their brain, you can see that's plainly not what's happening. If you are a political editor and you're singing Ice Ice Baby with Michael Govat at a party conference, he's probably not that scared of you. If your instinct is to downplay the significance of stories like an egregious breach of lobbying rules and the attempt to then rip up those rules, well, then clearly you're not being that good at holding power to account. If you are writing what is considered to be one of the most important political roundups every morning and you are the Prime Minister's son's godfather, all right? You're probably not the predatory fourth estate that you think you are. And there is this gap between the self-regard of much of the lobby and their ability to actually carry out that function, which I just find on a daily basis, completely stunning. It is incredible, isn't it? I saw a tweet which I thought was quite, you know, well-put, which was to say that tweet from Laura Koonsburg is a bit like a football journalist. You know, Cristiano Ronaldo has just been sold from Manchester United to Arsenal or something. That's it, they tweet. Well, this is just a story that you'll be interested in if you really like football. It's not like, you are a political journalist. You don't have to, you don't have to like start all of your tweets with sorry, this is about politics. Like, that's your job. You're not interrupting like the love island hashtag, right? Like a recoupling night. Like you are, this is your beat. We know that this is a Westminster story because that's your job. You probably won't be interested in what I'm about to say next, but I'm gonna say it anyway. It's like, that's just a good way of doing journalism, regardless of the, you know, the politics of this is the damage this does to democracy that I think you put very well. Let's go to a couple of super chats, completely unrelated to what we've been talking about, but I do like them because there's some beef in the super chats. So DC says, please do a video on Scottish independence since it was an is trending on Twitter over the last few weeks. IndieRef2 is alive and well and Scottish independence got over a hundred, 1.5 million tweets over the last couple of weeks. Let's see what happens in 2023. Nicola Curtin, also with Fiverr, please refuse to have a show about Scottish independence which is as dead an issue as the deadest dodo. We'll probably have a compromise which is we're likely gonna do lots of segments on the show about Scottish independence. We don't often devote a whole hour to a single topic. I mean, if there was a new referendum, we most certainly would, but I think we can bring you guys together. Ash Sarkar, it's been a delight being joined by you on this Thursday evening. We will both be back tomorrow at 7 p.m. Third night in a row, Ash. Not in a row, third night in a week. I know, I am so excited to spend my Friday night with you, Michael, even if, you know, other people have to watch. Yeah, you know, compromise is important. I've got my kinks, you've got yours. Let's wrap up there. As I've said, we'll be back tomorrow at 7 p.m. You've been watching Tiskey Sour on Navarra Media. Good night.