We've been wondering in the Red Lines team, which politician or journalist or commentator would lift the prize for getting the COVID-19 message?

Who's been best at communicating exactly what's going on and why?

Gareth, who would you give the rosette to?

Good to start with the nice controversial one.

I think Varadkar or Merkel, they got it early, they acted early and they have

sounded pretty leaderly throughout this crisis. My Louise? I'm going to go for Nicholas Sturgeon,

Scotland's First Minister. She, I think she's got the lockdown message and not afraid to take

on the Boris Johnson message, which he described as his latest

one as a catastrophic mistake. Interesting. John? I would go for Fergus Walsh, the BBC's medical

correspondent. Just that sense of very calm authority, especially in the, I think the very early days

of the crisis, what you would refer to as the

kind of the hair-on-fire days when we didn't really know very much about what was happening.

It was all terribly scary, and here was somebody who seemed to know what was happening

and was able to explain it to us in a way that was very gentle and very calm.

I think that's a very interesting selection you've gone for. There are so many people, I suppose, we could have mentioned there.

Interesting that you plumped for who you did plump for. There's been a lot of talk about the

Westminster Master Plan, a lot of criticism of it too, of course. Now we have our own Stormont

roadmap. So today we're pausing

to take in the big view from the high ground, if you like, the political battles, the hints

at the new normal that's coming our way and the challenge of political messaging in our changed

and changing world. Our own Gareth Gordon, Mary Louise Connolly and John Campbell are with me

for today's Red Lines conversation

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