leading Britain's conversation with James O'Brien.

Good morning. You're listening to James O'Brien on LBC. The time is three minutes after ten.

And, well, there's an awful lot to get through today, but it's hard to know precisely where to start.

So I'll start with me, if I may. And I was trying to work out this morning what the key differences are going to be

in my life or my sort of daily doings, if, as is expected, the part of England where I live,

i.e. London, is to be placed in tier two a little later today. We're still,

of course, not entirely clear on what the plan is going to be, but there is already a lot of

grumbling. I think possibly some positivity to start with. I know that there are huge flaws in some of the spending decisions that have been

taken since the beginning of this year. But do you know, I heard the head of the Office for Budgetary

Responsibility being interviewed earlier today. And he talked about how he cited beverage.

It said it's been like beverage overnight.

And whether it's happened by accident or by design or whether it's happened because

Rishi Sunak has prevailed over Dominic Cummings or who knows why.

But I don't think it was a given.

And they've obviously muffed up the management of so many different

areas of the pandemic, that this might sound like scamp praise, or faint praise is the phrase,

isn't it? But the government has shouldered epic financial burdens. And it didn't necessarily

have to. So in terms of the principle,

there's a lot to praise. The practice, of course, may yet prove to be considerably more pitiful

than the principle. But if you, like me, believe that the government has a role in improving

the lives of people, that government has a role in improving the lives of people, that government

has a role in seeking to balance out the epic inequalities and injustices that would occur

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