Let's begin with a question that clearly needs to be handled sensitively.

Can a politician have a good pandemic?

David?

No, because a pandemic is by definition.

Awful, you hope to get through it, take the right decisions under high pressure.

Michael?

Well, I think in certain circumstances,

politicians can have a good pandemic,

provided that there is kind of major solidarity

among the electorate

and provided they don't drop the ball.

Connell?

Yes, because if they do, then society has been served and everyone is mitigating the potential

impact of that pandemic.

Interesting.

We're devoting this edition of Red Lines to the subject of political leadership in this

extraordinary time.

What's required of a leader to guide his or her people

through a global pandemic? Does success mean past failings can be erased or at least consigned to

the footnotes when the political historians look back on the main player's careers? We are, of course,

in the middle of it all, but we're still going to try to get a sense of where our political leaders are taking us and whether or not we're prepared to be led by them willingly.

To do that, we've brought together Sir David Liddington, a relatively recent deputy Prime Minister Theresa May.

...