What exactly has been going on in UK politics?

In today’s Big Story podcast, the United Kingdom is about to have their third Prime Minister in two months, without even holding an election. Boris Johnson was finally ousted, only to be replaced by Liz Truss, who managed to tank the economy before resigning last week. Now Rishi Sunak is set to take on the role, and the Conservatives hope he’ll hold it until a general election that’s still 18 months away.

Matthew Flinders is a professor of politics at the University of Sheffield and the founding director of the Sir Bernard Crick Centre for the Public Understanding of Politics. He joins us to breakdown the increasingly baffling series of gaffes and missteps that eventually led to the downfall of the short-lived Truss administration.

“In the middle of a cost of living crisis, you wouldn’t want to make your first main major policy lifting and removing the barrier on banker’s bonuses, and yet that’s exactly what she did,” he said.

So how, exactly, did Boris Johnson manage to resign and then almost get his old job back? Exactly how did Truss screw things up so badly so fast? And just — in general — what the hell is going on over there?

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