Catherine West on the Kuenssberg Sofa — The Hornsey and Wood Green MP Reaffirms the Six-o’Clock Monday-Evening Ultimatum on the BBC Sunday Sofa at Half Past Nine, Names Three Cabinet Conditions Under Which She Will Not File Her Own Papers, Refuses Six Times to Rule Out a Tuesday-Morning Filing and Closes the Eleven-Minute Sofa With the Line “If Nobody Else Will, I Will”
On the eleven-minute Sunday-morning sofa interview the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme broadcast live from the New Broadcasting House studio at half past nine on Sunday morning — the Hornsey and Wood Green Labour MP and the Catherine West who, on Saturday morning at six minutes past eight, set the six-o’clock-Monday-evening ultimatum that opened the working calendar of the post-locals leadership question — reaffirmed the ultimatum, named three Cabinet-name conditions under which she would not file her own leadership papers, refused six times to rule out a Tuesday-morning filing if the three conditions are not met, and closed the eleven-minute sofa with the line her constituency association chair on Friday evening had asked her not to use on the broadcast Sunday: “if nobody else will, I will.”
The Six-o’Clock Reaffirmed
The reaffirmation of the six-o’clock-Monday-evening ultimatum, on the working transcript the BBC released to the Sunday political magazines at twenty to ten on Sunday morning, follows the question Laura Kuenssberg put as the third question of the eleven-minute sofa: “Catherine West, the ultimatum you set on Saturday morning — is the ultimatum still live, and if so, what is the working clock?” The MP’s answer, on the working transcript, runs to forty-one seconds, names “eighteen hundred Monday” twice, names the working location as Committee Room Fourteen and closes with the line “the clock is the clock.” The on-air follow-up, on the same working transcript, draws the words “the working clock has not moved and will not move,” which the political-magazine readers have, since the Sunday broadcast, taken as the working line of the working day.
The Three Cabinet Conditions
The three Cabinet-name conditions under which the Hornsey and Wood Green MP would, on the on-record Sunday-morning sofa, not file her own leadership papers, on the working transcript, are named in the seventh, eighth and ninth questions of the eleven-minute sofa. The first condition, on the working transcript, is that “a serving member of the Cabinet stands at the eighteen-hundred-Monday clock and files the papers.” The second condition, on the same transcript, is that “the Prime Minister, in the Monday Commons address at fifteen thirty Monday, opens the door to a leadership process the Parliamentary Labour Party can use without breaking the Party.” The third condition, on the same transcript, is that “the Deputy Prime Minister, on the working count the Rayner camp publishes at the close of the Monday Commons address, holds at one hundred and twelve.” The MP, on the working transcript, did not name a Cabinet member by name and did not name the Deputy Prime Minister by name. The political-editor reading of the on-air formulation, on the working assessment three Sunday political magazines published through the Sunday afternoon, “places Wes Streeting at the working centre of the first condition and the Deputy Prime Minister at the working centre of the third.”
The Six Refusals
The six refusals to rule out a Tuesday-morning filing, on the working transcript, fall in the second, fourth, fifth, sixth, ninth and eleventh questions of the eleven-minute sofa. The first refusal, in the second question, runs to nine seconds and closes with the line “I am not ruling that out.” The second refusal, in the fourth question, closes with the line “the working answer is the same answer.” The third refusal, in the fifth question, closes with the line “I will not let the question be the answer.” The fourth refusal, in the sixth question, closes with the line “the working answer at six minutes past eight on Saturday morning is the working answer at half past nine on Sunday morning.” The fifth refusal, in the ninth question, closes with the line “the answer is the answer.” The sixth refusal, in the eleventh and closing question, closes with the line “if nobody else will, I will.” The political-editor count, on the working assessment of the BBC’s political editor speaking to her own programme through the Sunday afternoon, is that “the six refusals make the seventh question the only question Westminster will be asking on Monday morning.”
The Streeting Reading
The on-record Wes Streeting reading of the Catherine West sofa, on the working text the Health Secretary’s office released to the Sunday political magazines at half past eleven on Sunday morning, runs to two paragraphs and seventy-two words. The first paragraph, on the working text, “welcomes Catherine West’s contribution to a serious debate the Labour Party is owed.” The second paragraph, on the same working text, “will not be drawn on the leadership question on a Sunday morning, and will be drawn on the leadership question on the working calendar the Parliamentary Labour Party agrees.” The Health Secretary, on the working count one Streeting camp organiser circulated to the lobby at noon, “has not added a name to the working sixty-eight-name parallel count he transferred to the Rayner total at lunchtime on Saturday.” The honest reading of the Streeting reading, on the working assessment two Sunday political magazines published through the Sunday afternoon, “is the working answer the Health Secretary gave on Friday evening: not on this working calendar.”
The Six-o’Clock Question
The six-o’clock-Monday-evening question is now, on the working assessment of every Sunday political magazine published through the Sunday afternoon, the working centre of the working week. The Catherine West clock holds at six on Monday evening. The Rayner working tally holds at one hundred and twelve. The Streeting parallel count holds at sixty-eight, transferred. The PLP confidence vote holds at six on Monday evening in Committee Room Fourteen. The Prime Minister’s Monday Commons address holds at half past three on Monday afternoon. The working line at the close of the Sunday afternoon is the working line the Hornsey and Wood Green MP closed her eleven-minute sofa with at twenty to ten on Sunday morning: “if nobody else will, I will.”