Coming to the COVID Crunch

Inside Briefing with the Institute for Government

Institute for Government

News, Politics, Government

4.6 • 252 Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2020

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Government is under fire over COVID as seldom before. Was it wise to aggressively rebut the Sunday Times report on their preparations for the pandemic? Is the idea of a risk-free exit strategy from lockdown a myth? Do we need bipartisan agreement on the COVID strategy for the sake of national cohesion… or perhaps radical openness? And is there really such thing as being “led by the science”? Special guests Lord Danny Finkelstein and former Blair/Brown advisor John McTernan join the IfG’s Bronwen Maddox and Jill Rutter for this week’s podcast. “In life, risk can’t be abolished. It can only be mitigated. You have to draw people into the choices you have to make.” – John McTernan “We need to level with people that we’re not creating an exit strategy, we’re making a big exit moral choice.” – Danny Finkelstein Presented by Bronwen Maddox. Audio production by Alex Rees. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Inside Briefing, the podcast from the Institute for Government.
0:13.8	I'm Bronwyn Maddox. As the coronavirus crisis intensifies, the government finds itself under new pressure.
0:19.8	There's been a weekend of really
0:21.0	critical coverage of its handling of the outbreak, which has prompted it a very unusual way to publish
0:26.1	long, very long, rebuttals on its websites. But this week has brought no respite as more details
0:31.8	come in about the procurement or failed procurement of personal protective equipment for health workers,
0:37.0	and the health secretary's
0:38.1	target of 100,000 COVID tests per day keeps coming under a lot of scrutiny. That's the first thing
0:44.4	we're going to talk about this week. And as the lockdown is extended with a full damage to the economy
0:48.9	still impossible to estimate, but some very, very big numbers out there. Ministers are facing more demands to spell out
0:55.2	their exit strategy. That's the second question we'll discuss. And the third is what the opposition
1:00.5	should do. Parliament is back in virtual form. And this week, we saw new Labour leader Kirstama make
1:05.9	his Prime Minister's question's debut in the Zoom Parliament, with not that many people there.
1:10.9	We'll talk about what kind of opposition he should bring.
1:13.9	Just to mention, you can get more insight into how government is handling this crisis from our
1:18.1	sister podcast, IFG Live, the new home for all our panels, talks and events.
1:22.9	And you can get that on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get inside briefing itself or at our website
1:29.3	Institute for Government.org.com. So let's say hi to today's panel. I'm delighted that we're
1:35.5	joined today by Danny Finkelstein, Lord Finkelstein, Times columnist and conservative peer. Danny, great to
1:40.8	have you on board. Thank you for asking me. Are you a Zoom Lord now?
1:46.6	I actually haven't tried it yet.
1:50.4	I will at some point, I'm sure.
	...

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