Sundown for Lockdown?

Inside Briefing with the Institute for Government

Institute for Government

News, Politics, Government

4.6 • 252 Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2021

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As the Government prepares for the huge leap of unlocking, can it manage expectations from both a weary public and its own restive MPs? Rishi Sunak is about to announce potentially the most painful budget in a decade. Can he pull the Tories’ pre-COVID policy aims out of deep freeze? And how will Conservative MPs feel about “building back better” with more social housing in their own constituencies? This week’s special guests are Mo Hussein, former special advisor to Amber Rudd and chief press officer in No.10, and IfG fellow John McTernan, former senior advisor to Tony Blair. “The government’s line is often ‘we’d love to do this but our scientists won’t let us.’” – Cath Haddon “The idea that absolutely everyone in Whitehall is knuckling down to work on COVID is just fanciful.” – John McTernan “The big question is, is fiscal conservatism dead or just hibernating?” – Gemma Tetlow “Sajid Javid resigned over independence, but Sunak has been the most independent Chancellor we’ve had for a long time. He’s even got his own branding and infographics” .” – John McTernan Presented by Hannah White with Cath Haddon, Maddy Thimont-Jack and Gemma Tetlow. Audio production by Alex Rees See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Inside Briefing, the podcast from the Institute for Government. I'm Hannah White,
0:14.5	the IFG's deputy director and occasional deputy podcast presenter. It's half-term, which for once is a relief to frazzled homeschooling
0:22.7	parents across the land. It also means that Parliament is in recess, which means that most MPs are not
0:27.9	in Westminster, but then very few have been anyway. And for this podcast, it means a chance to pause,
0:34.5	take stock and look ahead to what comes next. And there's a lot coming down
0:38.5	the track. Sometime next week, Boris Johnson will set out the government's plan for lifting
0:43.6	the lockdown. A few weeks later, Rishi Sunak will present his budget. And then, of course,
0:48.7	there's a new session of Parliament, presumably on the way, and plenty still to do on Brexit,
0:53.5	along with the prospect of potentially
0:55.0	more bust-ups with the EU. Big moments for government and for the opposition too, and to make
1:00.1	sense of it all, I'm delighted to be joined by two people who've worked at the heart of government
1:03.9	and who know the Conservative and Labour Party's inside out to. It's great to be joined by
1:08.5	Mo Hussein, a former special advisor to Amber Rudd,
1:11.5	chief press officer in number 10, and now Director of Public Affairs at PLMR. Hi, Mo, how are you?
1:17.9	Hi, I'm good, thank you. Thanks for joining us. And I'm glad to welcome back John McTurnon,
1:23.0	former advisor to Tony Blair, and an IFG senior fellow. Hi, John. Hi, great to be here. We're also going to be
1:29.6	joined today by a rolling cast of IFG staff, starting with Catherine Haddon, the IFG Senior Fellow,
1:35.7	who leads our work on the Constitution and Ministers. Hi, Kath. Hi, Hannah. So we'll start with
1:40.5	lockdown. Next week, the Prime Minister is probably going to set out the government's lockdown exit strategy.
1:46.8	Before then, the RFG will be publishing a paper on what the strategy needs to get right, because, after all, the government has got this one wrong before.
1:54.8	Kath, do you think the government is learning from past mistakes on the pandemic?
1:58.3	So, I mean, one of the key things that I think we've seen this year, certainly not,
	...

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