On Her Majesty’s Beleagured Service

Inside Briefing with the Institute for Government

Institute for Government

News, Politics, Government

4.6 • 252 Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2020

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Has the Government lost control of the unlocking narrative? Boris Johnson’s new advice confused much of the country, but how will it translate into real-world rules and regulations? Plus we discuss the new IfG report into the torrid relationship between Government and Civil Service during run-up to Brexit. Did tussles over Brexit damage the relationship between the Executive and and those who put its policies into action? Iain Martin, Times columnist and editor of Reaction, is this week’s special guest. “Boris is a journalist. He should have remembered a golden rule: Don’t do anything complicated on a Sunday for Monday’s papers…” – Iain Martin “When you have 27 million tuning into to a Prime Ministerial statement on TV, that’s a new level of engagement for Government.” – Joe Owen Presented by Bronwen Maddox with Gemma Tetlow, Joe Owen and Maddy Thimont-Jack. 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

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Inside Briefing, the podcast from the Institute for Government.
0:14.5	I'm Bronwyn Maddox. The government has now revealed its plan to ease the lockdown and
0:18.8	involves three phases, five tests, three steps and
0:21.9	five alert levels. You can see why people might have been confused. But is at the right plan?
0:26.9	We're going to take a look at how it could work out where the problems might lie and what happens
0:31.5	next as the government tries to get people back to work. For now and at least until October,
0:36.8	the government is going to be spending
0:38.0	billions of pounds a month in paying people's wages. That was this week's second big government
0:43.0	announcement from the Chancellor Rishi Sunak. But having extended the coronavirus job retention
0:48.1	scheme, how will he wind it down? And headlines this week were asking how he will pay for it
0:53.1	when the crisis eases, that is how we will all pay for it, is that an inescapable question, or irrelevant or premature.
1:00.4	For once, we're going to take a break from this crisis to look at the last big focus of government energy. Brexit seemed some time ago.
1:07.6	A new IFG paper this week argues that the civil service was damaged by the battles between
1:11.8	the government and parliament. We're going to chat to the report's author about the long-term
1:15.9	effects on the way that government works. Once you've listened to this episode, do seek out
1:21.2	our sister podcast, IFG Live, brings you all our events and discussions, get it on Apple Podcasts,
1:27.3	Spotify, or wherever you get inside briefing, or of course at our website, institute for government.org.com. And so back to today. I'm delighted to be joined by Ian Martin, the Times columnist and editor of reaction. Ian, how are you?
1:42.4	Aye, not too bad. Just about getting through lockdown.
1:45.6	Good. The last time we asked you on, I think you were having to self-isolate, but now it doesn't
1:49.1	matter. We're all isolated. I saw you tweet yesterday that PMQ's parliamentary
1:54.8	Prime Minister's questions is now a must-watch event. Why were you saying that?
1:59.6	Because Boris, I think, struggles with the format and because
	...

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