Summary
Number 10 deny a cover-up over Boris Johnson’s Covid Whatsapp messages. The Covid inquiry has demanded that the former PM hand over unredacted messages, diaries and notebooks by Thursday.
Adam talks it all through with political correspondent Alex Forsyth and the Institute for Government’s Catherine Haddon, who also teaches ministers the do’s and don’ts of doing official business over WhatsApp.
Plus the BBC’s former China correspondent John Sudworth and producer Simon Maybin talk about their new Radio 4 series which explores Covid’s origin.
Today’s Newscast was presented by Adam Fleming. It was made by Ben Carter with Madeleine Drury, Rufus Gray and Jack Taylor. The senior news editor was Sam Bonham.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.2 | Hello, so I was away over the weekend, |
| 0:07.6 | and I managed to avoid the British Airways IT meltdown, |
| 0:12.5 | and all the eGates at every British airport |
| 0:15.3 | stopping working for a couple of hours. |
| 0:17.6 | I managed to make it to Belfast today |
| 0:19.8 | to make this Radio 4 Brexit documentary, which I'm doing, |
| 0:23.5 | but the travel inconvenience has finally caught up with me. |
| 0:27.2 | I was meant to be doing a recording |
| 0:28.8 | in Birmingham on Wednesday, but there is a train strike, |
| 0:31.7 | so I just don't have enough time to get there. |
| 0:34.5 | And then there's going to be another train strike on Saturday, |
| 0:37.3 | which will affect you if you're trying to go to the FA Cup |
| 0:39.8 | or the Epsom Derby. |
| 0:42.0 | And if you're in that position |
| 0:43.7 | because you're being affected by the train strikes, |
| 0:45.8 | then we'd love to hear from you. |
| 0:47.2 | Even if you've not been affected, but you've got a view on it, |
| 0:49.3 | why don't you let us know, too? |
| 0:51.0 | It's newscast at bbc.co.uk, and the WhatsApp. |
| 0:55.5 | I'm sure you have managed to memorise it now, |
| 0:57.5 | like I finally did, 0-3-3-0-1-2-3-9-4-8-0. |
... |
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