Did it have to be this bad?

12/17/20 • 58 min

1 Listener

Britain has one of the worst records in the world at dealing with the coronavirus. The country's death toll, and the economic damage it suffers, will be worse than most of its competitors; possibly worse than any of them. Over three days in November, Tortoise held an inquiry into why things have gone so wrong. Basia Cummings reports back on its findings - and on her own year coping, as we all have, with an unprecedented crisis.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Is Covid cover for corruption?

The British government has spent billions tackling the coronavirus, and some of it has gone to friends and family of people in high places. Contracts for safety equipment or for testing for Covid have been handed out without the usual safeguards on public spending, and accusations of corruption and cronyism have flown around. Is that what's happening, or is the explanation more mundane? Would the government's actions be better seen as normal in the wildly abnormal situation of a pandemic? And have they perhaps been aided and abetted by garden variety incompetence?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

Crossing the Channel

A former army base in Folkstone, Kent, is now the controversial epicentre of the Britain's immigration debate – a debate that hasn’t gone away with Brexit.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.