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Hello and welcome to the programme.

As we look at the handling of the pandemic here, it's commonplace to assume

government has been incompetent in a number of respects.

Test and trace doesn't work, the PPE wasn't in place,

they acted too late or went too far or opened up too early, etc.

Now, it's not just here, by the way, almost everywhere, apart from Germany, New Zealand and

East Asia has had that narrative, although in this country those internal machinations within

Downing streets and the clear out of the Dominic Cummings faction has added a piquancy

to the call for government to get a grip.

Just devise, sensible policy and deliver it efficiently is the reasonable demand.

So we thought today we might focus on a key word in this narrative, competence.

What is it, for goodness sake? How do you get it?

Do we, looking in from the outside,

assume it's all much easier than it really is, like we shout at the IT department when the

computer fails? Do we not appreciate the constraints under which decisions are made? Well, we won't

focus on COVID per se, we'll talk about that, but we'll hear from three experienced

hands-on leaders with decent track records in delivering things in different industries.

And we're going to start with civil engineer, Sir John Ahmed. He is now chair of the National

Infrastructure Commission, advising government on infrastructure. He was the chair of the 2012 London Games

Olympic delivery authority, which did meet its deadlines, crucially. He's also run

network rail and was involved in the building of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, high speed

...