Chris Mason

Now, there's a couple of things we should tease away at here.

Things that those in high office will say when they're in high office differently.

are not always the same when the circumstance that they are imagining actually comes to pass.

And I don't mean to imply any sense of cynicism there.

It's just that if you are a political leader, the minute you publicly acknowledge some sort of potential limitation... There's things you've got to say to be able to keep going.

Completely.

And the minute you imply a situation where you are entertaining the idea of you leaving, either voluntarily or otherwise, that instantly is weakening.

However, so let's unpick a couple of things here.

Firstly, in doing what he is doing and doing it as repeatedly as he has done it, he is putting the barrier to entry, the bar that any potential toppler

has to clear as high as it'll go.

He is emphasising over and over again, including in circumstances in which he has been in, frankly, trickier and trickier waters, that if another MP comes along and says, I've got 81 MPs, which is the clearance threshold for triggering a leadership contest, the Prime Minister is saying, well, firstly, he's saying he won't, you know, there'll be no suggestion of him just walking away.

No coronation.

Exactly.

But in that scenario...

He would stand, including, as I put to him, a scenario where there is only one other contender.

In other words, a scenario where if he chose not to stand as leader of the party, he would be automatically on the ballot paper unless he chose not to be.

If he chose not to stand, then there would be a coronation of a new prime minister and it would all happen very quickly.

And I was really intrigued to ask him about this, Adam, because I've been interviewing the prime minister frequently for the last four or five years.

And the thing he always comes back to is he hates the kind of soap opera of politics.

And he hates the idea that there's been this kind of perma-chaos in politics.