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steve baker, remember him? the self—styled brexit hard man.eat where he's got a 4,000 majority, so it's a big if. - and the other candidates standing there are available on the bbc news website. of course, then that he would be | interested in signing for leader, | and you're going to get to the point where we get all the sunday- newspapers saying that various people are taking soundings i on whether they should be out. i can already imagine different spads for different ministers i ringing around journalists to just be like, "h, if you just— want to put it out there that they're thinking about it, i you know, they're getting loads of people approaching them, i i think you should think about it". so actually, when somebody, uh, if i go to the pub over the weekend, which i probably will, and somebody has been listening to this episode of newscast and they say, "why did you guys start talking about a future tory leadership that the tory party's won the election that hasn't even happened yet? "you're kind ofjumping the gun". it's justifiable beca

. >> we've had steve baker, we've had tom tugendhat, we've had penny mordaunt hint at it. seat, will you run for leader? >> well, i've said to everyone that i don't want to talk about leadership debates because my constituents actually say that they don't like us talking about ourselves. the most common thing that i've heard on the doorstep has actually not been immigration, but that they are tired of, the endless personality politics and fighting. so in answering that question, i sort of succumb to succumb to it. people knew that i tried to run two years ago, i didn't win, rishi sunak is the one who had the confidence of mps, and i think it's actually disrespectful if people are talking about what they're going to do after the leadership, when he's still there. my job now is to make sure that i win my seat, that as many of my conservative colleagues win their seats and do the very best we can for the country. and that means supporting the prime minister, rishi sunak, in what is a very, very difficult job. >> okay, well, let's put it a slightly different way. that might be

cleverly, to his credit , retweeted a tweet from credit, retweeted a tweet from giles watling and steve baker well as julian smith made comments in the prime minister's favour . so comments in the prime minister's favour. so i'm asking why is it that so few senior conservatives have come out to call out that the racist comments that were directed against our first british, asian, asian prime minister were absolutely appalling and call out nigel farage's reform party for some of their racist candidates and campaigners. three of those candidates were in fact were in fact had there with their support , withdrawn today because support, withdrawn today because of racist comments they'd made against immigrants. why isn't the conservative party calling this out for what it is? >> alex armstrong well, look, i think it's possibly because the conservative party might don't want to be seen as hypocrites. let's not forget that they took frank hester's money and didn't apologise for his comments and or nor returned the money. if i were them, i'd probably be pretty quiet about this. because you look like y

i mean, look, your northern ireland minister, steve baker, is lining himself up for the leadership job expecting defeat. >> well, i haven't seen that, but i don't. i think all of us are out every day knocking on doors . all of us are saying the doors. all of us are saying the same thing. i was talking to a colleague yesterday. there are so many, voters who are undecided. and of course, what's happening in the polls is everyone's trying to anticipate what they'll do. and there's all kinds of algorithms trying to anticipate that. but what we're doing is going out on the doorstep. but what is clear is many of these voters have not decided to go for another party. i mean, some have, but not many have. and that's what we're finding on the doorstep. so this last week is crucially important. you should never take the voters for granted. none of us ever do, we're out there knocking every day. actually, people are pleased to see us because they, you know, they're always happy to see somebody. no normally during an election. and the reality is, when you speak to people, when they may be a bit fe