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Newscast

Why Were Women 'Invisible' During Covid?

Newscast

BBC

Politics, News

4.46.4K Ratings

🗓️ 1 November 2023

⏱️ 36 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s been another extraordinary day of testimony at the Covid Inquiry. Wednesday’s session began with Helen MacNamara, a top official at Downing Street during the height of the pandemic. She described a “macho” culture at No 10 in which women “became invisible overnight”. She also said she’d struggle to pick “a single day” in which Covid restrictions were followed and recalled meetings at which people were “laughing at the Italians” in the early days of the crisis. Adam’s joined once again by the BBC’s health reporter Jim Reed and Dr Catherine Haddon from the Institute for Government to unpack today’s evidence. And, as the UK AI Summit gets underway, we speak to the BBC’s technology editor Zoe Kleinman after her interview with Rishi Sunak on the day the UK unveiled a global agreement on how to manage the riskiest forms of AI. You can join our Newscast online community here: https://tinyurl.com/newscastcommunityhere Today's Newscast was presented by Adam Fleming. It was made by George Dabby with Gemma Roper and Sam McLaren. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The senior news editors are Jonathan Aspinwall and Sam Bonham.

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

0:04.7

Hello, another quite astonishing day at the COVID inquiry.

0:09.6

Today we were hearing from Helen McNamara,

0:12.3

who was the deputy cabinet secretary,

0:14.6

and until now has only spoken to Laura Kay

0:18.3

for her magisterial documentary

0:20.0

about the last 10 years in British politics.

0:22.3

Today she was talking about what it was like being in the room

0:25.8

when all the big decisions were made or not made about COVID,

0:28.8

and she painted this amazing image

0:31.3

of the health secretary at the time, Matt Hancock.

0:33.9

And if you've ever seen or heard Matt Hancock,

0:36.5

and we all have, you can totally picture this.

0:39.9

He reassured me that he was, quotes,

0:43.0

loving responsibility.

0:45.2

And to demonstrate this,

0:46.6

took up a batman's stance outside the cabinet room

0:51.0

and said, they bowed them at me, I knocked them away.

0:54.3

How did Matt show attitudes like that affect

0:56.5

the country's response to coronavirus?

0:58.7

Helen McNamara spilled her version of the beans,

1:01.6

which we will discuss on this episode of newscast.

...

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