Tackling the Indian coronavirus variant
Political Fix
Financial Times
4.2 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 22 May 2021
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The UK's easing out of lockdown was put under threat by a new strain of coronavirus that originated in India. Can the race between inoculations and infections be won? Will the June 21 easing go ahead? Plus we discuss the biggest shake-up in British rail travel for 25 years and whether passengers will benefit from the new era of Great British Railways. Presented by Sebastian Payne, with Sarah Neville, Clive Cookson, Jim Pickard and special guest Christian Wolmar. Produced by Josh de la Mare. The sound engineer was Sean McGarrity. Review clips: Downing Street, Parliament TV, Sky News.
Further reading
-We will be lost if we panic at every Covid mutation
-UK races to tackle coronavirus variant through rapid vaccination
-English town of Bolton pins hopes on jabs to avoid another lockdown
-UK’s new model railway is likely to serve the public poorly
-A rational new model for Britain’s railways
-UK rail looks to private sector in biggest shake-up since 1990s
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The UK's battle against coronavirus intensified this week as the spread of the |
| 0:06.1 | new Indian strain raised the importance of vaccinating the population as quickly as possible. |
| 0:11.6 | I pitched this personally as a straight race. On the one side the race is |
| 0:17.0 | transmissibility. The other competitor in the race is vaccine delivery and the NHS |
| 0:22.6 | is doing everything it can to turbo boost that. |
| 0:28.8 | Welcome to Pain's Politics, your essential insider guide to what's happening |
| 0:33.1 | in British politics from the financial times, with me Sebastian Pain. This week we'll |
| 0:38.6 | be discussing the new strain of coronavirus that originated in India as mentioned by |
| 0:43.5 | England's Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van Tam at the top and whether |
| 0:48.0 | its spread will threaten Boris Johnson's plans to ease lockdown. Are the vaccines |
| 0:52.9 | and search testing proving effective? Explaining all is our health editor Sarah Neville |
| 0:57.6 | and signs editor Clive Cooxon. And later we'll be looking at the biggest |
| 1:02.7 | change of British Railways in 25 years. Are we heading back to the days of nationalisation |
| 1:08.2 | and the return of British Rail? Or is the shake-up less dramatic and something more nuanced? |
| 1:13.5 | Our Chief Political Correspondent Jim Picard will discuss with special guests the author and |
| 1:18.2 | foremost expert on UK Railways Christian Walmart. Sarah and Clive, welcome back to the pod. |
| 1:24.1 | Thanks Sarah. Well this has been a very odd week because we've been surrounded by |
| 1:29.4 | it's quite negative news about the Indian voucher will come on to in a moment but it's also |
| 1:34.4 | been easing week and I'm very keen to know have either of you managed to take advantage. |
| 1:38.8 | What about you Clive? Have you been hitting the town big time? |
| 1:41.8 | Well on a small scale I've been hitting the neighbourhood small time. We've been out to dinner |
| 1:48.6 | with some friends on Monday night. I belong to a book group we had a small meeting on Wednesday |
... |
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