U-Turn When You Don’t Want To

How did the Government end up completely wrong-footed by a footballer in the issue of extending free school meals? Are ministers getting broad enough – and sufficiently independent – scientific advice when it comes to quarantine and the 2m Rule? Will the folding of the “world-beating development agency” DFiD into the Foreign Office mean damage British soft power? And will insourcing probation reverse the “total disaster” of outsourcing? 

• “The Marcus Rashford episode shows a lack of political antenna in Downing Street.” – Jill Rutter
• “A government with an 80-strong majority is now being pulled around by its backbenchers.” – Cath Haddon
• “What we’re seeing now is that the attitude that the private sector is ALWAYS best was wrong.” – Tom Sasse
• “The Government says it has diversity of thought. But they don’t have a lot of diversity of experience.” – Jill Rutter

Presented by Bronwen Maddox with Cath Haddon, Jill Rutter, Tim Durrant and Tom Sasse. Audio production by Alex Rees. 

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