Do We Really Need to Do This?

The government announces England's pandemic plans for winter. Fergus and Vicki are here with Adam to go through the ‘Plan A’, which includes booster jabs, and the potentially more dramatic ‘Plan B’. Vaccine passports haven’t been ruled out. And in a surreal turn of events at the announcement, Boris Johnson and Professor Chris Whitty ended up in a spat with rapper Nicki Minaj – and even our very own Laura Kuenssberg was brought into it. Prince Andrew is being sued in New York over allegations of sexual assault by Virginia Giuffre, but his new lawyer says the legal papers haven’t properly been served. Emily Maitlis comes in to break down the details and talk about the possible significance of *that* Newsnight interview.

And, hey presto: the Magic Circle has its first female president! We’ve conjured up the pioneering magician herself, Megan Swann, who tells us about her new job and has a special trick for Newscasters.

Today’s Newscast was made by Emma Close with Danny Wittenberg and Georgia Coan. The studio director was Emma Crowe. The editor is Jonathan Aspinwall.