How much trouble is the DUP in?

New DUP leader Edwin Poots faces his first challenge today as he tries to push through a controversial candidate for First Minister. There are now rumours that the party may launch a vote of no-confidence in him, only a month after he became leader. How much trouble is the party in? Katy Balls points out that the removal of Poots perhaps would not solve the DUP’s problems, given more moderate candidates like Jeffrey Donaldson lost out to him:

‘If we end up in a situation where there’s a vote of no confidence in Poots… it’s not clear that the party is unified in what should follow next.’

On the podcast, Isabel Hardman also asked James Forsyth about Andrew Neil’s interview with Rishi Sunak for GB News last night, and why the Chancellor was equivocating so much on the cost of Net Zero:

James explains that the government actually doesn’t know the full price, especially as there’s a fair amount of hope that, in future, renewable energy becomes cheaper in the same way that offshore wind has done:

‘Hinkley Point now looks very overpriced… because the cost of offshore wind has come down quite dramatically… The question is how much of that is replicable in other green technologies? How much do the prices of things, such as electric vehicles, come down as they become more mass produced?’