Driven To Tiers

Inside Briefing with the Institute for Government

Institute for Government

News, Politics, Government

4.6 • 252 Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2020

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

First birthday edition! Is Boris Johnson’s tiers-based compromise on fighting COVID worse than simply biting the bullet of a national lockdown? Is Westminster command-and-control creating an irreparable breach between London, Scotland, Wales and the North of England? And does that road end in full devolution? JACK BLANCHARD, UK politics editor at politico.com, is our special guest. “It’s very hard to find anyone who thinks the tiers approach is really going to work.” – Jack Blanchard “We assume that the Government has good reasons for its approach, not just ‘We’re frightened of the lockdown sceptics’.” – Jill Rutter “There is no worse way to win hearts and minds than to have scenes of angry disagreement like we saw this week.” – Jack Blanchard Presented by Bronwen Maddox with Jill Rutter and Cath Haddon. Audio production by Alex Rees See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the first birthday edition of Inside Briefing. Yes, we're celebrating 12 months of the Institute for Government podcast. There may be even cake, eaten and not eaten, socially distanced past the
0:22.3	parcel before the policy explodes. I'm Bronwyn Maddox. On today's edition, the tears have set in.
0:28.2	Boris Johnson's latest grading of coronavirus restrictions was launched at the start of the week,
0:33.1	but the scientists aren't convinced, or some of them they've called for a national lockdown.
0:38.2	We'll take a look at the government's plan. And while London moves into Tier 2 restrictions, other parts of the country
0:43.5	are now in Tier 3, the tightest set. We'll wade into the battle between central and local government
0:48.6	and discuss how this might play out. And relations between the nations of the UK are becoming
0:54.0	more strained.
0:55.2	The Welsh First Minister has said he will ban entry to Wales for travellers from COVID hotspots
0:59.6	in other parts of the UK. Meanwhile, a new poll in Scotland has shown huge support for Scottish
1:04.6	independence. We'll explore the effect that COVID is having on the Union.
1:08.7	To discuss all that, I'm joined in our virtual studio by
1:11.8	IFG Senior Fellow, Kath Haddon. Kath, hi. Hi, Bronwyn. Senior fellow, Jill Rutter. Hi, Jill. Good morning.
1:19.5	And I'm delighted to be joined by Jack Blanchard, UK political editor at Politico. Jack,
1:23.8	thanks for joining us. Hello, thanks for having me. All right. Well, let's start with the Prime Minister's latest strategy for driving down the R-rate
1:31.3	and reducing case numbers in a statement to MPs and a press conference to the nation.
1:36.5	Boris Johnson has set out a three-tier system.
1:39.8	Jack, is this a real change?
1:42.2	Well, it sort of homogenises a bit more the sort of piecemeal approach that
1:47.8	we've seen to these local lockdowns over the last few months. So in that sense, yes, it definitely
1:51.8	is. But for lots of areas that have been put into tears, they actually haven't seen very much
1:56.5	change initially because, as I say, it's been going on in some forum or other in parts of England for a long
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Institute for Government, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Institute for Government and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.