51. How the Conservatives turned COVID into a national catastrophe
The Owen Jones Podcast
Owen Jones
4.4 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 March 2021
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Around 1 in every 500 Britons have been killed by COVID-19: one of the worst death tolls and death rates on earth. But the horrors of Britain's worst crisis since World War II were not inevitable. A new book - Failures of State - by leading investigative journalists Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnott exposes the British government's catastrophic failures in horrifying detail. We talk about their revelations - which expose what should be regarded as the biggest peacetime scandal of modern times.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, this is Owen Jones, welcome to the podcast. |
| 0:10.7 | Now we have lived through the gravest national emergency since World War II. |
| 0:17.5 | Around 1 in 500 people over the last year have been killed by COVID-19, one of the worst |
| 0:24.9 | disasters on the face of the planet during the course of this nightmare. |
| 0:31.6 | Now a new book is out called Failures of State by two excellent journalists Sunday times, |
| 0:38.0 | Jonathan Calvert and George Arbathonock. |
| 0:42.0 | And this book looks in devastating detail about how the British government turned what would |
| 0:50.3 | always be a very difficult situation into one of the worst catastrophes on the face |
| 0:55.8 | of the earth. |
| 0:57.6 | From the very beginning it pieces together, the story, it's like a horror film, I mean |
| 1:04.2 | we know we've lived through misery but just seeing how the government failed at every single |
| 1:10.4 | possible opportunity, delaying lockdown over and over again, making sure that we ended |
| 1:17.2 | up with longer more protracted lockdowns, worse economic devastation and a bigger loss |
| 1:22.6 | to human life. |
| 1:24.4 | I won't go on because you really need to listen to this, you need to listen to these two |
| 1:28.9 | authors who've spent so much time speaking to so many people from the very top to the NHS, |
| 1:37.6 | doctors, experts, everyone. |
| 1:40.0 | It really is a comprehensive look at how we ended up in this terrible, terrible state. |
| 1:47.2 | It's a bit of housekeeping. |
| 1:49.1 | For those supporting us, we're currently doing a documentary in fact about companies |
| 1:53.8 | which have profited from COVID-19, on patreon.com, that enables us to do our work, so thank |
| 2:01.8 | you so much for those who haven't, go to patreon.com for us on Jones 84, or you can use the support |
... |
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