COVID: The Year of Indecision

A year on from Lockdown One, what have we learned – if anything – from the response to the once-in-a-century crisis of COVID? A new IfG paper identifies ten urgent lessons that government needs to learn. And if there is to be a Public Inquiry, what should it seek to discover? Plus, as the post-EU Transition Period ends, does the real Brexit start here? And what problems has the Government’s approach stored up? The Guardian’s Rafael Behr is our special guest. 

• “Boris Johnson wanted to play the role of the happy-go-lucky leader and it just did not equip him for delivering the bad news and hard decisions that the crisis demanded.” – Rafael Behr 
• “There’s a clichéd Yes Minister view that the Civil Service elite know better than operational systems on the ground… But the pandemic turned that on its head.” – Alex Thomas
• “I fear that the current Prime Minister will quickly seal off the disaster site, bulldoze the black boxes and claim it’s time to move on.” – Rafael Behr

Presented by Bronwen Maddox with Maddy Thimont-Jack, Rhys Clyne and Alex Thomas. Audio production by Alex Rees. Inside Briefing is a Podmasters Production for the IfG. 

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