Lewis Goodall

You've said it, exactly.

She was elected in 2020.

That last cabinet you were at, when everyone knew that you were maybe about to go over the top and after the elections.

It must have been so bloody awkward.

You sound really pissed off with the way Downing Street works and this prime minister works.

These were the messages between Darren Jones and Peter Manelson and others?

Were you surprised?

I mean, you were very open, actually criticised for it by some, I think by Downing Street at the time, actually.

You were sort of castigated for it.

Yeah.

But you did reveal, publish your messages with Mandelson.

Were you surprised to see that certain ministers' messages weren't included, who might have expected to have been included this week?

I'm thinking about Darren Jones, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, who said he didn't have a very warm communication with Mandelson, and yet it was revealed that he did.

It just wasn't in the release that he was overseeing.

Did you agree with him?

Did you agree with the spirit of that message, which is to say a lot of your colleagues do spend a lot of time thinking about how to tax people to pay people benefits?

That's a bit of a problem with the current Labour Party.

And I want to talk about some of the other things that have happened this week that are really, really important.

I don't want to spend any more time talking about the prime minister, apart from one question, which is this.

The thing that going back to the conversations that I allude to with you've just relayed some of it.