Covidshambles: The human cost of chaos in No 10
Radical with Amol Rajan
BBC
4.5 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 2 November 2023
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s been an explosive week of evidence at the Covid inquiry. Government by WhatsApp and chaotic scenes at Downing Street.
Amol and Nick discuss how badly the UK handled Covid and whether a different approach would have fundamentally altered the response and outcomes of the pandemic.
Joining them in The Today Podcast studio is Louise Casey, who spent nearly 20 years in the civil service and who has run a range of inquiries, . She tells Amol and Nick what she made of her time working with the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
And Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, emeritus professor of statistics at Cambridge University, takes us through the data. Just how badly did Britain really do?
Episodes of The Today Podcast land every Thursday and watch out for bonus episodes. Subscribe on BBC Sounds to get Amol and Nick's take on the biggest stories of the week, with insights from behind the scenes at the UK's most influential radio news programme.
If you would like a question answering, get in touch by sending us a message or voice note via WhatsApp to +44 330 123 4346 or email us Today@bbc.co.uk
The Today Podcast is hosted by Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson, both presenters of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the UK’s most influential radio news programme. Amol was the BBC’s media editor for six years and is the former editor of the Independent, he’s also the current presenter of University Challenge. Nick has presented the Today programme since 2015, he was the BBC’s political editor for ten years before that and also previously worked as ITV’s political editor.
The producers are Tom Smithard and Stephanie Mitcalf. The editors are Jonathan Aspinwall and Louisa Lewis. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths. Studio direction from Mike Regaard.
Note: This audio has been edited to include a fuller answer.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:04.7 | Nick, I haven't seen you for a week. And what a week it's been. We did warn our lovely listeners that the COVID inquiry would be quite the spectacle. And indeed it has. |
| 0:13.1 | We did, but frankly, I wasn't expecting this. Those WhatsApps, obscene messages in many ways, misogynistic, cold-hearted. |
| 0:20.5 | They were deeply unpleasant and suggested a toxic culture at the top of government in this country. |
| 0:26.2 | But does it change what we really thought? Not just about the nature of Boris Johnson's government, but the country's response to the pandemic. |
| 0:34.0 | If everything had been working as it should have done, we can talk about what that might really mean, what difference would it have made? Yet we must never lose sight of those |
| 0:41.9 | fundamentals because they are infinitely more important than the very fruity language in people's |
| 0:47.0 | WhatsApp. I want to know, you want to know, listeners want to know, was lockdown worth it? Did |
| 0:50.8 | children and young people pay far too high a price for our policies? |
| 0:54.8 | Were care homes neglected, particularly at the start of the pandemic? And the detail we're getting |
| 0:58.9 | this week, next week and over the coming months, it's useful above all if it helps us answer |
| 1:03.3 | those really fundamental questions about this huge national trauma. Seems to be there are two |
| 1:08.5 | issues and to some extent their intention with each other. |
| 1:12.6 | Some people think we locked down too slowly that people died unnecessarily. Others think that |
| 1:18.2 | lockdown was too high a price to pay. We'll try and address both of those. A COVID shambles, |
| 1:23.8 | you might call it, the human cost of chaos in number 10. |
| 1:28.2 | Let's do it. |
| 1:46.3 | It's Amal here in the Today podcast studio, just back from the end of human history summit, sorry, the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire for one night only to record |
| 1:51.1 | this podcast and help feed and bathe my children, though sadly not put them to bed. |
| 1:55.0 | And it's Nick in the back of a van in a car park in the dark, in an undisclosed location. I'm in a radio car. You often hear |
| 2:03.9 | as mention those on the Today program, but this radio car is at my hostile environment course. |
| 2:11.3 | A hostile environment course, I should probably do one of them. Then again, I do already |
... |
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