The Guardian

Not even that interview could distract critics from a measly 1% pay rise for nurses and a multi-billion pound test and trace system that may not even work.

I'm Jessica Elgott, Deputy Political Editor of the Guardian, and this is Politics Weekly.

I really think that when it comes to matters to do with the role, family, the right thing for prime ministers to say is nothing and nothing is the thing that I propose to say today about that particular matter.

For anyone who happened to miss it, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Megan and Harry dropped a bombshell on Buckingham Palace with accusations of racism and the apparent silencing of a woman's struggles with her mental health.

A government minister claimed that Prince Harry was blowing up his family. Boris Johnson, however, is opting, uncharacteristically, for silence.

Will one of the most damaging royal stories in decades make its way down the mouth towards Westminster? And how should MPs react?

The Prime Minister will no doubt be asked to explain why 22 billion pounds of taxpayers' money has been spent on a test and trace system that a report published this morning suggests might not even work.

This price I doesn't compare favorably with the backlash to their other announcement that the government will give just a 1% pay rise to health workers.

Also, with a potential rebellion looming over the government's plans to cut overseas aid, later on I chat to conservative commentators about why this is a particularly tricky fight for a Tory government to take on.

And finally, my colleague Severin Carell speaks to Labour's new leader in Scotland, Anasawa, about the party's uphill struggle at the Hollywood elections.

That's all in this week's Politics Weekly.

But first, children are finally back at school in England, and there's already concerns about a surge in Covid cases once further lifting has been done.

To discuss this and everything else, I'm joined by the chief leader writer at the Observer, Sonya Soda.

Sonya, let's start with the news coming out this morning. There's a report by Parliament spending watchdog, which is looking at the test and trace system,

which basically they say shows no real evidence that it's actually reduced the level of Covid infection in the community, which is pretty astonishing to say that the government is still paying some consultants £6,000 a day to work on it.

And obviously the original idea was that a working test and trace would help prevent the need for lockdowns, which it seems to manifestly have failed to do.

How do we expect the government to respond and to this?

Well, we've already had a bit of a response from a Diodate Harding, who's the sort of head of a test and trace.

And her response is, you know, 80% of the costs of test and trace are actually spent on testing and that they've been doing lots of contacts with people asking them to self isolate and that that will have had an impact on community transmission.

However, I mean, that only goes so far to answer MP's concerns, obviously, because 37 billion has been allocated for trust, test and trace over two years.

Even when you take out the 80% that's for testing, that's a huge, huge sum of money.

...