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Are we really all in it together?

It's certainly comforting to think so as we all share the fear of a common enemy, as we

all stand on doorsteps and in windows to applaud those who are trying to defeat it.

Yet the more we've come to know about this damned and dreaded virus, the more we recognize

that it can divide us too.

And not just the impact of the disease and the lockdown, which depends on whether we

are men or women, old or young, black or white, poor or wealthy.

This week, for the first time, the country, or more precisely the four countries of this

still United Kingdom, were divided in their response, with the governments of Scotland

or the Ireland and Wales refusing to adopt not just Boris Johnson's new stare-lert slogan,

but his roadmap for returning to normal life too.

My guest on this week's political thinking, the programme whose aim is to have a conversation,

not an interrogation about the roots and the values and the philosophy of those who shape

our political thinking, is the first Minister of Wales, Labour's Mark Drakeford, a ukulele

playing cricket-loving, allotment-tending Latin scholar who always insisted that he was

happy as a backroom boy and never really wanted the top job.

First Minister, Mark Drakeford, welcome to political thinking.

For now, dark, good afternoon.

It is said that you do a lot of your thinking on that allotment.

Have you needed to spend quite a lot of time there during this crisis to get a clear

head?

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