Robert Peston

member of the government shortly after cabinet, and he just said, look, it's absolutely clear he is going to fight.

And then I talked to another cabinet minister who just said, look, if he does anything other than that, the government just looks incredibly weak.

There is no confidence in the cabinet nonetheless.

There won't be a contest, and actually all eyes now are on whether West Streeting resigns and puts himself forward as a candidate.

And there is certainly going to be quite a lot of pressure on Streeting to do that because a lot of the MPs yesterday who were calling on the Prime Minister to set out a timetable to stand down were Streeting supporters.

Then there were others who are Andy Burnham supporters who also were calling on the Prime Minister to clear a path for their hero, Andy Burnham.

Andy Burnham, as we speak, is about to be spotted arriving at London Euston Station.

I mean, I am sort of, you know, to be clear, and you can probably spot this, I'm sort of midway between hysteria and trauma at the moment.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, for two reasons.

One is because these occasions...

when we're not sure whether a prime minister is going to survive, are unbelievably intense.

I'm on the phone the whole time talking to different ministers and MPs.

I'm trying to work out where the balance of power lies, what the mood of people are.

It takes over your entire life.

And one is having those conversations constantly,

You know, right up to sort of midnight.

And then as soon as you wake up in the morning, you're on the phone again trying to work out what the hell has been happening.

So it's exhausting.

But also the reason I say it's traumatizing is because in the last, well, 10 years, we've had...