Hello and welcome to rock and roll politics, the podcast with me, Steve Richards. Thanks for tuning in.

For those of you who tuned in last week, I gather that my bit of the podcast was recorded in

mono accidentally, for which I apologise for. I don't know what was going on, but some people

love mono recordings. The Beatles were recorded in mono originally. They re-released

them all about five years ago and Paul McCartney said, yeah, a lot of people like the mono. It's great.

So I hope you liked the mono last week. No, I'm sorry, it was completely accidental. And I apologize.

I don't blame ministers for not apologising when they're asked to apologise

persistently at the press conferences, as if an apology brings about anything really beyond a sort

of embarrassing headline ministers apologise and then another minister is asked on the stay programme,

your colleague apologise, will you

apologize? And it's all irrelevant. But what is so striking at the moment at this stage of this

emergency is the strange gap between ministerial pronouncements and what then appears to be the reality in hospitals and

care homes. The press conferences, which is the most exciting moment of my day, I get

scund by half past four, I get really excited because the press conference is only minutes away.

And I know they're going to be boring and tedious,

and yet I'm drawn to them each day. I keep on thinking about what people, when they are shown in

a hundred years time as an example of one element of this multi-layered crisis.

I think people will be fascinated.

They are so dated on one level.

The presentations of the ministers and the scientists are far too long

and don't reveal very much in that length.

And there are some weird things.

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