How did Boris misjudge the Paterson backlash?

Owen Paterson has resigned as an MP after being embroiled in a lobbying row. Allies of the Prime Minister have blamed the Chief Whip, Mark Spencer, for the fiasco, while other Tory MPs are fuming at the Prime Minister’s miscalculation. How did Boris not realise the potential backlash? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman.

On the podcast, James says: ‘It was really obvious how the press, the public, the opposition, were going to react to the Tory party trying to upend the standards rules and stay a guilty verdict against one of their own MPs. This is not an unexpected reaction to that kind of action.’

The team also talk about the resignation of Yorkshire Cricket Club Chairman Roger Hutton, who quit after the club’s board refused to accept racism allegations from former player Azeem Rafiq. Isabel says: ‘There’s a cut-through between politics and cricket here. You have these cultures of people who are not prepared to have their behaviour questioned, who are not prepared to have their institution questioned.’