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Hello and welcome to Spectator Out Loud. I'm Fraser Nelson. Each week during lockdown, we've been asking three of our writers to read out what they've written for the magazine.

This week we have James Versailles reading his cover story on Boris Johnson's Mission Impossible to Rewire Whitehall. We've got Douglas Murray

writing a column about a leaked memo he's had from an NHS chief suggesting what the underlings

might like to read to educate themselves on culture wars. And finally, Leith Arbuthnotts, who went

underground to the various speak-eas and secret theatres happening in London right now.

First, James Forsyth.

Rewiring the state. COVID has revealed what is wrong with Whitehall.

It is never a good sign when the government relaunched itself. Look what happened at the end of Theresa May's time and power.

It was a relaunch almost every other week, each one with diminishing effect. But although it has been

overhyped, Boris Johnson's attempt to start again isn't a mere rebranding exercise. It is not just

about rehashing policy proposals, but about trying to tackle the dysfunction at the heart of

the state. The PM has attempted to do something past, he does have thought to be an impossible job to rewire the whole system. Johnson has time on his side, four years to get things back

on track and a common majority. But there's a paradox at the heart of his big reform project.

If he's so frank, almost brutal about the failings of government, how can he be pinning his hopes

on government to solve this country's economic problems?

In normal circumstances, a politician's view of the efficiency of government informs their view on the role of a state.

The post-war Labour government was animated by the belief that the man in Whitehall knows best,

and so the state became ever more involved in both the economy and in people's everyday lives.

Margaret Fatcher,

...