Hello and welcome to Inside Briefing, the podcast from the Institute for Government.

I'm Bronwyn Maddox. It was already a difficult summer. Many Brits had begun to attempt

some kind of holiday abroad.

Now those plans have come to a crashing halt with the government's decision to remove Spain from this list of safe countries,

the reintroduction of the 14-day quarantine for those coming back, and the warning that more countries could go on that list.

Having been accused of moving too slowly back in March, Boris Johnson is now accused by some of moving too fast.

Is this a sign of chaotic government decision-making or a new steely determination from the Prime Minister in the face of growing infection rates across the continent and talk a second wave

there? The pain in Spain dominated the week's news, but all the same, the government launched a new

healthy living drive and a plan to get everyone to take up the Prime Minister's passion for cycling.

Is this going to work? And Johnson has now formally committed himself to a public inquiry on coronavirus,

something he will not have wanted, but essentially could not avoid. But can that inquiry

actually deliver the answers people want and quickly enough

to be of any use? We're going to look into the do's and don'ts for handling inquiry as well.

And I've got a great panel to talk about all of this. Alex Thomas, a former civil servant himself,

now leads our civil service work. Hi, Alex. Hi, Bromyn. And I'm very glad to be joined as well

by Jill Rutter, our senior fellow and former

number 10 official, Jill, warm welcome. Thank you. And very warm welcome to Sir Lawrence Friedman,

Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King's College London, and a former member of the Iraq War

Inquiry who's been writing already about the first stages of the handling of coronavirus.

Laurie, thank you very much indeed for joining us.

Hi. Good to be with you.

Great. Well, look, let's start with travel in Spain, the wreckage of the holiday season

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