Yeah, no, that's not fair.

Sorry about that.

She's in the book.

So, well, Theresa is occasionally a bit starchy, but with a very warm heart beneath it.

You say in the book, 350 million on the side of a bus, you said it was good that it was disputed because it meant it was talked about more.

And we know, I would put this to you, that a disputed fact is more useful to you in a campaign than an absolutely objectively true fact.

What it says, what is absolutely objectively true is that 350 million, actually, which is an underestimate, if you look at the figures that were projected, it was going to go up to probably 420 at least, or maybe 450 by 2020.

And that was the gross figure, as we said repeatedly in that campaign.

And yes, it was true that to calculate the net figure, the figure that was sent to Brussels, for Brussels to spend on Spanish bullfighting or tobacco farms or whatever the hell it happened to be, you had to cut it in half.

And it was probably about 175 million.

There was then 175 million that was spent in the UK at the discretion of Brussels that we did not control.

Therefore, and by this time people's eyes had glazed over, but you were making the point that huge sums were being spent in a way that the UK electorate did not control.

And it was very, very important to get that point over.

And that sum would have continued to increase.

And by the way, by the way, thanks to Brexit, we've been able to get that back.

And just to, I don't wanna, you know, harp on about this BBC interview yesterday, but he then tried to dispute another claim, which was about the vaccine rollout.

And he said, well, under, we hadn't actually yet left the EU at the end of 2020.

Actually, we had left the EU.

We'd come out of the EU.

And I just want you, Stig, with all your Olympian impartiality and fairness to accept this point, because I think it's so, so unjust.

And so the people still quibble about it.

And so, so important.

It was because we were out of the European Medicines Agency that we were able to licence vaccines faster and save lives.

So by March- You could have done that with a national regulator.

Sorry, but then why, okay, here's the question.

Why did 27 other countries remaining in the EU, why did the Pasteur Institute of France, the Max Planck Institute of Germany, why did they not do that?

Why did they all wait weeks and weeks- So the argument you're making is a psychological one, which is about groupthink, which I understand, but technically- No, it's not about groupthink, it's about the power, it's about the power of the commission and the way the system works.

And no country, I can tell you, no country in the EU would have done that.

People will con- And people know that.

People may concede that point.

If you will concede- I want you to concede it.

Concede it.

If you will concede, Boris, that you could have done it- I concede no points.

What are you going to concede?

What do you want me to concede?

I want you to concede that you could have done it if we were still in the EU, you could have done it using the national regulator, but you could have done it.

You were legally able to do it.

If you'd had a Brexiteer government- You could have done it.

That was on the point of leaving the EU finally and formally anyway- My point is- Then you would have done what we did.

So legally and technically, you could have done it.

It would never have happened.

And by the way, not only that, we would have remained within the EU.

And this, because this is a sort of total, total nonsense, and people need to understand, we would have remained not just in the EU vaccine licensing procedures under the European Medicines Agency, but we would also have been within the EU vaccine procurement process, which would have been totally chaotic.

And so the result was, and I know it's tough to accept this, but it's true.

The result was that because we'd fully taken back control of our legislation and our regulation, and as I explained in Unleashed, that was because we believed in a model of British independence, because we had basically believed in Britain, we were able to vaccinate people faster than any other European country.

Let me remind our viewers or listeners, anybody who's still tuning in, of the figures. 45% of all adults by March, 2021, almost everybody over 80, 90, 100% of those over 80 in the UK, huge levels of protection already by March.

In the EU, because of their relative slowness, because they waited for the EMA, they'd done 10%, right, 10%.

So, and this was a time when hundreds of people were dying every day.

You know, January, actually, we had maybe 1,000 people dying every day something.

And I wanna get to COVID.

Now, what we were able to do, therefore, was of material benefit to elderly and vulnerable people.

And that's the case.

And so what I'm setting out in this book is an argument about, you know, we went through all the psycho drama of Brexit and people's worries about it, and all the rest of it.

And what I'm trying to say is, almost immediately after we'd done it, in a way that nobody predicted or expected, it actually delivered a material benefit.

And you've made the case there about vaccinations, but the model of Britishness that you talk about, the success of Brexit that you talk about in the book is not a view shared now by the majority of your fellow citizens.

Most people think Brexit has not been done properly.

Most people, wait till I finish, think that it has not worked, that it can't work.

If there was a referendum tomorrow morning, Leave would lose and would lose soundly.

Because the model of Britishness- I see, go on.

But the model of Britishness you're talking about has not worked.

You have not convinced your fellow citizens.

And do you know what they think, Boris Johnson?

They think you didn't know how it was going to work.

And so it became that you couldn't control it after it had happened.

Well, that's complete nonsense.

So first of all, your first assertion there, which is total nonsense, is that if there were a referendum tomorrow, then Leave would inevitably lose or people would vote to rejoin.

That's what you're- No, no, I'm not saying vote to rejoin.

The last poll I've seen on this, Remain would win 55-31.

So you think that people would vote to rejoin?

I think if you had the vote again, it would be very, very different.

So, say on, so the hypothesis is, your hypothesis is, that now, having- If you had your vote, the question is if you had your vote again.

It's not to necessarily rejoin.

Let's say rejoin.

Well, how can you- Well, it's a hypothetical poll.

I don't see what you're saying.

In order to vote for joining the EU, I mean, we're out of the EU now, right?

So you're imagining a vote in which people vote to rejoin the EU.

So you think you've convinced most people in this country of the success of Brexit?

So, I'm just trying to understand what you're saying.

You're saying that the people of this country would now vote to rejoin the EU.

Let me tell you why I think that's- 51%, let me tell you another fact. 51% of people say the negatives of Brexit outweigh the benefits.

Is that what you're now saying?

I'm not saying this.

You got polled recently- Are you saying that people- say the negatives of Brexit outweigh the benefits?

I was told that you were a very kind of gentle, sort of ruminative type of interviewer.

I'm interested in a ruminative interview, Boris.

We started this interview with you picking a fight that I didn't even start.

Okay, that's true.

I put my hands up for that one.

Okay, I'm guilty of that.

Okay, but listen, seriously, on your point about another referendum.

Let's put it this way.

Another referendum, right?

Now, the choice for the British people is, given that we're now out, the choice is between going back in or staying where we are, right?

And you think you can convince people?

So, you've got to imagine, Stig, you've got to imagine that you, as a proud, passionate Remainer, can convince the British people to go back into the European Union and hand over 20 billion quid a year, much of it to be spent by Brussels in the EU, all of it to be controlled by Brussels.

You've got to imagine that the price that what they get in exchange is giving up control of their legislation, their regulation, again, giving up control of their laws, giving up control of their borders, going back to unrestricted free movement with the EU, and giving up control of their monetary policy, and, because those are the rules of rejoining the EU, giving up the pound sterling in favour of the Euro.

Now, you've got to, that's the case that you would have to make.

So, the bridge has been burned, as a fact of what you're saying.

And so, what I'm suggesting to you, that the very first assertion that you made that people would vote to rejoin the EU is, I think, completely mistaken.

Completely mistaken.

People wouldn't do that, okay.

And I don't think they would do that.

Tell us a story from...

And so, on things like immigration, where, you know, I've got to put my hands up and say that after the pandemic, we faced a huge problem.

I mean, immigration clearly gone off the cliff during the pandemic, and the numbers went massively down.

But, after the pandemic, the issue that we faced was inflation.

And you will recall what happened.

We didn't have anybody to stack the shelves.

We had serious price inflation.

We had massive labour cost inflation.

We didn't have any fuel drivers.

And every single business group, every single secretary of state was saying, you know, we need the labour force.

And so, I don't think it was, you know, it was perfectly understandable.

The migration...

You opened the doors to what?

You opened the doors to what?

Well, I think the advisory committee on, in some sectors, social care and others, decided that we had no choice.

But...

Let's put this in plain English.

You opened the doors to what?

I think that we did in that year, 2022, because we were desperate to contain inflation.

Inflation is a massive destroyer of people's livelihoods and of economic, of hope, of investment, of growth.

Inflation is a disaster for the UK.

I remember it from my childhood in the 70s.

And people, I think people understand that.

People understand that.

So we had to beat it.

But the beauty of the position, Stig, let's get back to Brexit.

I want to move on from Brexit if I can.

I know, but...

You started off on Brexit.

I wanted to say whether the PG Woodhouse influenced your writing style.

And we're coming to have a 10-minute row about Brexit.

We'll get to...

We might as well have our crosswords first.

But you did, you talk about the pandemic.

Let's talk about the pandemic.

COVID chapter's obviously a major part of the book.

There's a slight feeling in them, Boris Johnson, that a bit of an extended plea.

It wasn't me, Gov, who's responsible for this.

Hang on, Stig, have you actually read all this book?

I've read all this book.

Have you read all the bits where I put my hands up and say what I think?

You can't forget how you put your hands up.

All I'm saying is, tell us now one thing you'd do differently when it comes to the pandemic, with the benefit of hindsight.

Well, folks, it's in the book, as you will read it unleashed.

Our listeners have not read the book, that's why we're having this interview.

Oh, well, there's lots of things I would have done differently.

Give us a substantive one.

Well, I think that, you know, the most important thing is that we need in future, as a country, I mean, you know, we are gonna get another plague, another pestilence that may kill different demographic groups, and we're going to be challenged with the problem of how to stop transmission of a disease we can't see.

And the same arguments are going to be made again about lockdowns.

And we're going to need to know to what extent lockdowns, the NPIs, non-pharmaceutical interventions, actually bend the epi curve, and to what extent the bending of the epi curve happens naturally.

Yeah.

And do we know that now?

We don't know that now.

Why do we not know that now?

Well, I don't know that now.

Maybe you know that.

No, I don't, but why don't we know that now?

Because I think it's very, very difficult to evaluate.

And I think that, you know, I've seen some papers that the scientists have done, you know, the General Royal Society and so on.

It's very thin stuff, very, very thin stuff.

So do you think there might be lockdowns again in that world if we don't know?

Look, I think we need, I think as a country, as a world, you know, because everybody's tried to do roughly the same thing.

You know, even the Swedes had a, you know, version of the NPIs, you know.

We need to work out to what extent the benefits of the restriction on transmission you get from lockdown are, outweigh the disbenefits to the loss of education and so on.

Because closing schools, I say in Unleashed, closing schools is a really, really hard thing to do.

And it's maybe the wrong thing to do.

And maybe, Stig, it was.

And so what I'm saying is in all intellectual honesty, that is, you know, the thing, maybe we should have, we need to know.

I think you can defend very much what the government did on the March, it wasn't just the 23rd, it was a series of steps.

So on, you know, and I know you're going to want to ask about, you know, the things I regret about what happened in number 10 and the cabinet office and all the rest of it.

But that, you know, with great, you know, with due respect to everybody who is, you know, infuriated by that, and I understand that.