Chris Mason

And I'll do that whilst you guys are talking to make sure I'm not misquoting him.

But there's something along those lines.

It's just obviously on a totally different scale in government.

Yeah, and I think to a degree as well, the nature of public life is that these things play out in public.

And I guess all organisations and institutions and whatever can have their tangles, some of which we find out about and some of which perhaps we don't.

And then it's magnified in political parties, which tend to be, to a greater or lesser extent, sort of loose coalitions of

varying views.

And, you know, these sort of things can blow up when there's a perception from some that the leadership is the reason why you seem to be wildly unpopular.

I didn't... Alas, the copy, alongside all my other political biographies, is not to hand in this newscast Westminster HQ, but I've done a little bit of a nifty look online and I can find...

no reference to either the quote or it being Tony Blair's.

So whether this is my sleep-deprived head hallucinating, I don't know.

But the broader point stands, doesn't it, in terms of the impact of internal party turbulence when you're running the country versus not.

Yeah, so her position is that she is kind of keeping an eye on things and up for sticking her head, I was about to say her head in the ring, her hat in the ring or her head above the parapet, should it come to pass that there is a contest.

I think that's broadly speaking what her team are saying at the moment.

So, which is kind of how most of us watching all of this have anticipated this.

her likely involvement if it gets to the point that something happens.

She is clearly, you know, a key Westminster cliché word alert coming, power broker in the parliamentary Labour Party.

So absolutely one to watch and one that others, not least,

And Andy Burnham kind of, you know, keep an eye on and wonder what kind of role she might play with.

As things stand, the whole question about her tax, the thing that cost her a job in government, still loitering.