Chris Mason

It is quite another when that scenario is real, particularly because, again, in that circumstance, and again, we're into the hypotheticals here,

But in that circumstance, you could get a response from the cabinet, for instance, that would leave a prime minister in a position where carrying on was untenable.

So I'm not saying that will happen.

I've no idea.

Let's see.

We're well into the who knows what's going to happen zone at the moment.

Welcome to podcasting.

Well, yeah, exactly.

But I thought it was interesting that he was willing to sort of riff away at that scenario.

Because, of course, they're thinking through all of these potential scenarios.

And you talk about what prime ministers have to say in certain circumstances to carry on.

And I just remember that famous interview you did with Liz Truss in her final week in office.

none of us actually knew for certain at that point that it was her final week in office it was on the Monday night and you asked that classic question of will you fight the next election as the leader of your party and she said yes but with a massive pause before she said that and that pause you could argue and I'm sure historians will say sort of sealed her fate that week so I was very intrigued to hear what the version Keir Starmer would come up with for that question not criticising you for doing an obvious question at all it's a good

Well, in advance, just to show my workings when we were preparing this interview this morning and we were kicking that around, it's not quite the same circumstance that the prime minister's in compared with Liz Truss.

There's parallels, but her situation was more perilous.

Mainly only a couple of days difference, but it was more perilous.

And I thought, you know what?

That is absolutely the question to repeat, because even though there is a standard answer, let's see how he responds to it.

Well, yeah, because he didn't give the standard answer.

That's what I want to do.