What Can The Government Actually Afford?

Newscast

BBC

Politics, News

4.4 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 9 July 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Can the government afford everything it wants to do?

Adam is joined by BBC economics editor Faisal Islam and BBC health editor Hugh Pym to discuss the news that resident doctors, who used to be called junior doctors, have announced strike dates for later this summer. The government says it won’t reopen negotiations with the British Medical Association, which represents resident doctors.

Plus, the chair of the inquiry into the infected blood scandal says that victims have been harmed by delays to the compensation scheme. The government announced £11.8 billion pounds to fund compensation at the autumn budget, but the inquiry’s chair, Sir Brian Langstaff says there are “obvious injustices” in the way the compensation scheme has been set out.

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New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bit.ly/3ENLcS1 Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. It was presented by Adam Fleming. It was made by Chris Flynn with Shiler Mahmoudi and Anna Harris. The technical producer was Michael Regaard. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:04.9	Hello, thank you to this newscaster for their feedback about the previous episode of this podcast
0:10.5	when we were the first people to ever broadcast from the Cabinet Office briefing rooms
0:15.5	where ministers get briefed on a crisis.
0:18.9	And the reason we were there was that Pat McFad and the cabinet office
0:21.7	minister was telling us the date for the next test of the nationwide emergency alert system,
0:27.7	where everyone's phone gets a message and a very, very loud buzz. Over to you, Lucy.
0:34.4	Hi, Adam and Chris. As I listened to today's podcast from Cobra HQ, I was reminded of the alert we received in Wales during the storms last winter early December. I was in Cardiff recording my grade eight practical violin exam at the time. That involves filming four pieces played in one continuous take. Luckily, the extremely loud alert sounded on the phones of both me and my accompanist while
0:55.1	we were having a tea break in between takes. Had it gone off a few minutes earlier, it could have
0:59.1	completely ruined my exam submission. Good times. I did pass the exam. Thanks. Love the podcast.
1:04.9	Thank you, Lucy, for your voice note and also more importantly for listening to Newscast all these
1:09.1	years. And congratulations on making Grade 8 on the violin.
1:12.1	I don't think I got off Grade 1.
1:14.1	Right, let's see what grade we get for this episode of Newscast,
1:17.4	where the theme is basically, what can the state afford?
1:22.4	What can the government afford in terms of compensating people
1:25.3	who got infected by HIV or hepatitis because of treatment
1:30.2	they received on the NHS? Can the government ever afford to pay the resident doctors, who used to be
1:35.7	known as junior doctors, enough to stop them going on strike because they've announced another set of
1:40.1	strikes today? And also, just in the long term, can the government afford spending more on
1:45.8	defence while also having to spend more on pensions and welfare? Lots of chunky subjects to get our heads
1:52.8	round on this episode of Newscast. Newscast from the BBC. He has just compared me to the fat
	...

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