How do you weigh human wellbeing against Coronavirus deaths? How do we get “R”, the rate of Corona transmission, to a manageable level? As the government wrestles with lifting the lockdown, has “relying on the science” given it too narrow a focus regarding the serious trade-offs that are coming? And how will the criminal justice system deal with the massive backlog created by COVID? Cabinet secretary of the Blair and Brown years GUS O’DONNELL joins us to discuss the enormity of the Government’s challenges.

“We’ve effectively got huge experiments going on all over the world to try to find out how we get out of this.” – Gus O’Donnell

“To say the peak has passed and you can go out, and then see ANOTHER peak… that could be a blow that a government might not recover from.” – Giles Wilkes

Hosted by Bronwen Maddox with Giles Wilkes and Nick Davies. Audio production by Alex Rees.

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“R” Wars against the Phantom Menace