Summary
A report by MPs says the UK’s early response to Covid-19 was one of the country’s worst public health failures. Professor Sir John Bell joins Adam and James to look back on the momentous decisions made in March 2020.
As the financial fallout from the pandemic continues, the number of job vacancies in the UK has hit a record 1.1million. Why aren’t those jobs filled – and what does it mean for the economy? Bloomberg’s Lizzy Burden explains.
And what is the EU doing to cut emissions in the run-up to the COP climate summit? Adam reunites with the European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans to find out.
Today’s Newscast was made by Danny Wittenberg with producers Georgia Coan and Alix Pickles. The studio director was Emma Crowe and the assistant editor was Alison Gee. The editor is Jonathan Aspinwall.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:04.7 | Hello and hello to James Gallagher who's back. |
| 0:07.2 | Hello. |
| 0:08.2 | So it's good to have you back, but the reason you are back is that we're kind of going back to square one with COVID because the two parliamentary select committees that were doing that very big inquiry into COVID that saw Dominic Cummings doing evidence for seven hours have published their report today. |
| 0:24.0 | And so it's kind of taken us right back to where we first started. |
| 0:28.0 | I know I remember going to a briefing that had Professor Neil folks and Professor Lockdown as the media of taking |
| 0:34.4 | to calling him or took to calling him, spelling out what would happen if we just let COVID |
| 0:39.4 | continue as it was going and spelling out hundreds of thousands of people dying and then |
| 0:44.7 | walking back kind of shell-shocked from that briefing into a studio with you and |
| 0:49.8 | Chris and Moorea. Hello. |
| 0:53.0 | Grab a seat. |
| 0:54.0 | Welcome to Newscas. |
| 0:55.0 | Well I was still in Brussels at that point. |
| 0:58.0 | Still with one through Brexit land, yeah. |
| 1:01.0 | But I remember it very clearly because it was quite frightening to hear what you had to say |
| 1:05.1 | They don't think they can contain this virus anymore now for a long time the chat has been |
| 1:08.9 | Including from organizations like the board health organization this is something that can be |
| 1:12.7 | controlled that was very clear from Boris Johnson and Sir Patrick Valence |
| 1:16.4 | Chris Whitty that no this is going to hit and now what we need to decide now is how we can |
| 1:21.2 | minimize how hard it's going to hit. |
| 1:24.0 | I mean I didn't even imagine hardly any of the things that then happened. |
| 1:29.0 | No, even when you were kind of watching what happened in China and then Italy it still felt |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.