Covid report: ‘a £200 million I told you so’
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 21 November 2025
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Yesterday we had the publication of the second module of the Covid Inquiry on the decision-making at the heart of government. It confirmed a toxic and disorganised culture at the heart of No. 10 and the headline is that the government acted ‘too little, too late’, costing as many as 23,000 lives in England.
That figure is already disputed, not least by our economics editor Michael Simmons who argues on the podcast that the inquiry is a ‘disgrace’ and demonstrates a lack of domain knowledge about the limitations of modelling. Where else does the inquiry fall short? What will be the political ramifications in Westminster?
James Heale speaks to Michael Simmons and Isabel Hardman.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Subscribe to The Spectator in our Black Friday Flash Sale and you'll get 12 weeks of the magazine, along with full access to all of our online content, for just £12. Not only that, but we'll also send you a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label Whiskey worth £30 on the shops, absolutely free. |
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| 0:35.9 | Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm James Hill and I'm joined today by Isabel Hardman and Michael Simmons. |
| 0:41.9 | Now, yesterday, Isabel, we had the publication of the second module of Baronet's Hallett's COVID Inquiry. |
| 0:47.3 | There are 10 overalls. So excitedly we're going to carry this on for the next two and a half years or so. |
| 0:51.6 | But tell us about the sort of main findings in this report and whether we learned anything new. |
| 0:55.4 | Yeah, so this was on the decision-making |
| 0:57.0 | at the heart of government in the run-up to and during the pandemic. |
| 1:01.7 | I don't think we did learn anything particularly new. |
| 1:04.9 | Most of it had come out either in news reports |
| 1:07.1 | or evidence to the COVID inquiry. |
| 1:09.3 | I think it confirmed, baked in what we already |
| 1:11.9 | knew in terms of a culture of chaotic decision-making, a culture of fear that could |
| 1:17.5 | it sometimes be sexist, that Boris Johnson either appeared not to be in control of, we're quite |
| 1:22.4 | happy to continue going in its toxic way. And a lack of seriousness in February 2020 about the approaching |
| 1:29.6 | pandemic which led the report to say that that month was a lost month. So that's its findings |
| 1:36.1 | in terms of the decision making. And I think there probably are things to learn for future |
| 1:41.1 | governments about how to approach a pandemic from the report. However, as I'm sure Michael |
| 1:45.6 | is itching to say, the headlines and the debate around the report have focused on its more |
| 1:51.5 | contentious findings slash conjecture. I think it's probably best to say. Well, look, I brought my |
| 1:57.2 | reality check mug along for this very purpose, because I'll be honest, I think the report is a total disgrace. |
... |
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