This week on the Pestan podcast.

How will we know whether the new COVID restrictions are actually working?

Are we facing an unemployment catastrophe?

And why have so many Tory MPs turned against the Prime Minister? I'll be discussing all this and more

with the International Trade Secretary Liz Trous with the First Minister of Scotland, Nicholas Sturgeon.

And I'll also be discussing Trump with Rick Wilson, who is a Republican, he is a strategist, but he doesn't like Donald Trump.

Lots of wisdom too, from Ruper Haug, the Labour MP, and from Nick Timothy, who was chief of staff to a Prime Minister not that long ago,

and the Prime Minister wasn't Boris Johnson, it was Theresa May.

First up, Liz Truss.

I'm delighted to be joined by the International Trade Secretary, Liz.

Now, you're going to be thrilled that I'm actually not going to ask you

how different the rules are between Newcastle and Cardiff.

But I was slightly surprised when your colleague Alec Sharma said this morning on the radio that he was thought it was unfair for journalists to ask ministers what the rules are.

It's not unfair, is it? It's a perfectly sensible question to ask.

I think the issue is, though, that we need to focus on the big picture. You know, why are we

doing these local restrictions? And the answer is, because we don't want to have another

national lockdown. We don't want the economic consequences that will bring to people's livelihoods.

So the right approach is to have local restrictions dealing with COVID where it arises.

So that is the point that he was making.

That seems to be a very powerful argument, but equally it's only worth having those rules if people understand them.

Absolutely, and they're available there on...

And therefore you should know them, shouldn't you?

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