Laura Kuenssberg

I mean, it's like, you know, there's a giant sort of big bird standing behind you with a big sign saying... Contest.

Contest.

Got it.

There is no contest.

Let me tell you.

I mean, he couldn't say anything else, right?

Of course, the prime minister's since time immemorial have to sometimes say things that make them sound either like they are completely delusional.

Or that they are, you know, not cognisant of some quite basic facts.

But yeah, technically, there is still not a contest, except a man called Andy Burnham stood on stage and said to the nation, I am coming for your job.

Also, he has said, I will join a contest.

He has, but he wouldn't trigger it.

So that's the thing.

But look, I would say this again.

Nothing is certain.

And of course, I'm going to look like a prize plum next week if actually Chris Dunmore comes out and says, oh, I'm going to fight or Andy Burnham says, oh, actually, I don't want the job after all.

Look, other things could still happen.

But my impression, as we're talking at 2.30 on Saturday, is that events really might move quite quickly towards some form of transition.

really in the next coming days so I am foolishly putting my neck on the line if we're wrong I will be delighted to say next week of course we were wrong with transparency you put your neck on the line and sometimes it gets chopped off but you know that is my impression of based on my conversations with different sources in the last you know 48 hours and probably in the last 20 years you know these are all kind of they're that's where I that's where I think we are heading for

Yes.

It is, because I think in the end, politics is a rough old business.