It is four minutes after ten, and you are listening to James O'Brien on LBC, a radio presenter who ordinarily concerns himself chiefly with matters related to current affairs politics and similar. Most recently, of course, an almost unleavened diet of coronavirus-related material, but who would today quite happily spend another three hours just looking forward to Sunday. But he can't. Well, he can, but he won't, because it would be a little odd.

And frankly, we filled our boots so successfully yesterday that I sort of feel they're close to

fall. I will, however, speaking at the end of the programme as we throw forward to this fateful

weekend, to an England legend who actually was part of the panel that selected

Gareth Southgate as manager in the first place. So it's hard to know who the best guests are

at times like this. And I can't think of a better guest, in fact, than somebody who saw

early, earliest, former teammate of Southgate as well, who saw very, very early on what the rest of us have subsequently seen.

But we will begin, perhaps, with somebody who is in many ways the opposite of Gareth Southgate.

I speak of Dido Harding, the Baroness, no less, who has been responsible

throughout for the so-called test and trace system. She chose yesterday to describe it at a

select committee hearing as a success. I shall say that again, in case anybody thinks they've

woken up in a parallel universe.

The Baroness, responsible for the test and trace system, yesterday described it as a success.

She suggested that the media was to blame for the public expecting the system to have done better.

Damn, those pesky journalists, wondering whether or not it was reasonable to expect something akin to efficiency and effectiveness in return for a bill that is estimated to be set to

end at 37 billion pounds. 37 billion pounds. Oh, speaking of large sums of money, do you think the final bill that the United Kingdom will have to pay to the European Union as a consequence of the withdrawal agreement that David Frost negotiated and Boris Johnson signed? Do you think it will be higher or lower than 37 billion pounds? The final bill. You remember that we're saving money. We're going to have loads of

extra cash. $350 million a week, I think, was the figure. Higher or lower? I'm going to play the

role of the late great Bruce Forsyth. A Brexit-flavored edition of Play Your Cards, right? Higher or

lower? 37 billion pounds, higher or lower? I'll tell you later in the program. So that is what

it's going to cost. The MPs on the public accounts committee accused her of spending eye-watering amounts

of money with little effect on the course of the pandemic. So it's not just journalists who are to

blame, according to Dido Harding. It is also presumably pesky politicians pointing out how much money she spent and how useless it was.

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