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Hello and welcome to the edition podcast.

The Spectators weekly look at some of the most intriguing

and important issues within our pages with the writers behind them. I'm Cindy Yu. This week we

discuss whether or not the new COVID rules will tear the country apart. Also on a podcast,

the real reason we should be disappointed in Ansan Suu Kyi.

And at the very end, is Sally Rooney's normal people just overrated?

First up, James Forsyth writes in this week's cover piece that the new local restrictions will tear the country apart because it's no longer a national lockdown. This is a moment of maximal peril for the government

and James joins me now together with Andy Preston, Mayor of Middlesbrough, who released this statement

that went viral last week. As things, Stan, we defy the government and we do not accept these

measures. We need to get COVID under control

and we need to work with people to find a way of preserving jobs, mental health. So James,

there are new restrictions being floated around, but we're not heading into a national lockdown,

and that's the problem. Boros Johnson is likened the kind of second national lockdown to a nuclear

deterrent. And I think he'll be extremely

reluctant to go there. First of all, it would be economically catastrophic. And secondly, it would

prompt a huge rebellion from within his own party. But I think the problem for him is, if you look at

this system that they are planning to move to of kind of three areas of restrictions, is the areas

that would be subject to the most intense restrictions

would nearly all be in the north. And I think that poses a political danger to the Tories.

...