Why is MAGA trying to jail America's top doctor? | The News Agents

The Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who has long had Anthony Fauci in his sights, he called Fauci to give evidence to this committee and was the person responsible for releasing the private diaries of Anthony Fauci, which does seem to show Dr Fauci in a slightly vain way.

light.It has been alleged in the past by the American right that Dr. Fauci was responsible for funneling some American federal government money to Wuhan and the Coronavirus Research Institute at Wuhan, which of course some people believe actually is responsible for the COVID pandemic in the first place.

There was no manual.They were flying blind.The News Agent's podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity.This is a global production.What day of the week is it today?

On the advice of council, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

What colour tie are you wearing?

On the advice of council, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

What colour is the carpet in front of you?

On the advice of Council, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment.

This is the circus that unfolded in the Senate yesterday, when Republicans were trying to put on the stand Dr Anthony Fauci, the man who led the fight against Covid, and he decided the best thing to do was to stay stum and plead the Fifth.

During Covid, Anthony Fauci became the most famous official in American political history.Why now is half of American politics apparently determined to put their equivalent of Chris Whitty

The News Agents so predictable in some ways, because the Republicans in America, MAGA in America, absolutely hates, detests and loathes Dr Anthony Fauci.And I think it's fair to say that Dr Anthony Fauci would reciprocate some of that, particularly to the committee chairman, the Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who has long had Anthony Fauci in his sights.And as committee chair, he called Fauci to give evidence to this committee and was the person responsible, as you said in the introduction, Lewis, for releasing the private diaries of Anthony Fauci, which, let's put it mildly, does seem to show Dr Fauci in a slightly vain light.

certainly throughout America, but around the world, because he was the head of the CDC, Center for Disease Control, sort of their equivalent, I suppose, of what was then sort of Public Health England and so on.It's actually a sort of bigger, more sprawling organization than that.But as I said in the introduction, he was kind of the American equivalent of Chris Whitty, sort of chief medical advisor to President, then President Trump, the Trump administration.And yesterday, as John was saying, he was called before this Republican -led committee in the Senate, and the hearing focused, or was supposed to focus, on the origins of COVID -19, especially in terms of the research funding that it has been alleged in the past by the American right that Dr. Fauci was responsiblefor funnelling some American federal government money to Wuhan and the Coronavirus Research Institute at Wuhan, which of course some people believe actually is responsible for the Covid pandemic in the first place.Now, everyone knew, this is a long -running pedigree in terms of Senator Paul's obsession with him, the American Right's obsession with him, so much so that the viewers and listeners might remember, President Biden actually gave a pardon, a preemptive pardon, as part of that last batch of presidential action that he had as his of his administration, because he believed, I think correctly, that the incoming Republican Congress and administration would do anything they could to try and incriminate the guy and potentially put him in prison.

But that pardon does not cover things that happen in the future i .e.and this is the reason why Fauci decided to plea the fifth repeatedly on the advice of his lawyers if he were to say something before congress that could then be construed by the bad political actors in congress or on that committee as perjury or contempt of congress or as having misled in some way then he could potentially be liable to legal action in the future despite that pardon, which is why he repeatedly refused to answer questions.But Republicans, of course, argued that his refusal to answer questions raises serious questions about him and basically say that it is essentially guilt by omission.Well, they're also going further.

They want to have a vote on whether, by pleading the fifth, that was contempt of Congress and so two amendments or two bits of the Constitution rubbing up against each other whereby it is the right and the power of senators and congressmen and women to call people to give evidence.Refusal is that contempt or is itpleading the fifth?I mean I would have thought the constitutional prerogative lies with Anthony Fauci to say I'm not going to self -incriminate but they want to have a vote on whether he has committed contempt of Congress and you can go to prison for contempt of Congress if that is upheld.It was pretty unseemly but listen to Dr. Fauci explaining and really taking aim at Rand Paul about why he was making this move.

Given Senator Paul's obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, the only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, quote, behind bars.

So again, just to reiterate, the figments, the thing that Senator Rand Paul and other Republicans are trying to suggest that Fauci is guilty of, is lying to the American public about potentially, as I say, funneling money to this research institute in Wuhan, and generally lying about some of the reasons of COVID lockdowns, suggesting he said things at the time that weren't really true and so on, and therefore committed either crimes or certainly acted irresponsibly in terms of the job.that he had.I mean, I think it is worth saying that, you know, if we're trying to sort of step back and ask ourselves why it is this isnow a sort of half -decade dispute between Rand Paul in particular, this Republican, well -known Republican senator, himself a doctor, and Fauci.And there is an eye, one of the explanations for that is that there is this ideological gulf between them.Rand Paul is a libertarian senator, small state, came to believe that the medicalization of the federal government at the time of COVID represented an overreach, a barbaric, tyrannical, type overreach into everyday life of Americans.

And so there is a sort of ideological gulf between them.And as for so many on the American right, Fauci is a kind of talisman, a kind of sort of emblematic of everything that they believe is wrong with the scientific professional expert class, which we have glimmers of in our own politics, but it is nothing so acute as it is in American politics.But this is also, clearly at this point now, not just about ideology or politics, it is deeply, deeply personal between the two men.Indeed, as you heard Fauci there, he's described it as a vendetta.Such a vendetta this is, that we have now got to the point where Paul himself has somehow, and he has not actually established how he has obtained them, but he has managed to actually acquire the personal diaries of Dr Anthony Fauci covering the period from 2019 to 2022 during the pandemic and has published them for the entire world to see.Now, these entries, I think it's fair to say, whilst there is nothing especially scandalous, as perhaps for any of us, having our private everyday thoughts being put out there for the entire world to gorge upon is not necessarily, has not been the most comfortable experience for Dr. Fauci.

Well, I am going to ask you in a moment, Lewis, to play the part of Dr. Anthony Fauci, a role that I think you're very fit to play.I've been preparing for for a long time.Becausedays and days listening to Dr Fauci in the White House briefing room as he was coming in and trying to give his assessment of where things were and it seems that what he was doing in the evening was getting home and writing up about all the famous people that have been in touch with him and this one had rung and I've just become so famous.Lewis, would you take on the part please?

Well there are more than 1100 pages of these diaries.He certainly had some time on his hands it turns out.I think it's fair to say it's not entirely flattering.For example, on a day when school closures have been announced, lockdowns have been announced, vaccine mandates have been announced.Dr Fauci's entry for that day doesn't really include much about that, but he does have time to know.Big front page article about me appeared in the Washington Post today.

Very flattering.The situation with my national and big international fame is explosive and really unimaginable.It's not hypoperbole to say, sick, brackets.to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and indeed one of the most recognizable persons in the world.He goes on to say on another entry on February the 27th, 2020, stock market crashing.President Chief Medical Advisor writes, amazing day.

And on March 28th, after more lockdowns were announced, what a night.And indeed, it turns out that Dr. Fauci developed something of a Rolodex of celebrity.And I mean, even John Soper, I suspect, may have been there at some point.He says that, among other things, he says, Barbara, that is Barbara Streisand, called me on my cell phone today.She asked me questions about her booster shots.It's always good to hear from her, he said.

Julia Roberts as well, we have on there.We've got Elton John, Billy Crystal, Brad Pitt, Robert De Niro, even Emily Maitlis decided to put in a call and ask about the AstraZeneca vaccine.So, you know, in a way, what you see there, and of course, this is sort of flippant, and there's nothing scandalous about it in particular.There is no smoking gun, we should say, you know,what would Paul have loved to find?He would have loved to find basically an entry that said something like, oh, God, it turns out all that money I've been spending to Wuhan.

Yeah, it turns out maybe actually there is a lab leak and I'm kind of responsible.There's nothing like that.There's absolutely nothing like that.There are some serious points of policy that maybe we can discuss that might have been at variance with stuff that he was saying at the time.But I think the problem of what it does, those sorts of things, is that in a country which is polarised as America, which still, much like our own country, has not truly had a reckoning with or come to terms with Covid and all of the lost moments, the trauma that is involved in that.What it does, and the reason they published and released it, is help augment and cement the impression which has really sort of calcified and become toxic.

certainly in the US, but even over here as well, Partigo being the obvious example, which is that there was one set of rules for them and another for us.Whilst here was a guy who was appearing on television night after night telling us, telling them how our lives had to be restricted, had to be that we had to forgo all of these special moments, how we had to endure genuine trauma, i .e.for example, not being able to say goodbye to our loved ones or saying goodbye through glass windows or whatever it was.Here was a guy who, frankly, if you were reading these diaries, at times appeared to be relishing and enjoying what he was experiencing.

Having sat through so many of those hearings, you could understand some of the dynamics of what was going on.That you had this chaotic White House with Donald Trump kind of going to meetings where one thing is agreed, you emerge from the meeting and Donald Trump says something completely different.And so Fauci took it upon himself and he has worked for the National Institutes of Health, the NIH, very powerful body in America since 1968.During the AIDS pandemic, he was the person who was there advising America.what it should do to keep safe and prevention and all the rest of it.So he's given his life to public health.

And I don't doubt the sincerity of the man at all.And I think that he was trying to take the best medical advice possible and trying to shift, move the administration to a point where it was doing what the scientists thought was the best thing.Now that obviously rubbed up against Donald Trump, and I remember one briefing where Fauci almost contradicted the president.I think what the president meant to say was, and I thought that's a bloody bold thing to do, what is so terrible about those diaries is that he comes across just every bit as vain, narcissistic almost, as Donald Trump himself about the front covers.I'm now the most famous person in the world.He was.

There was a whole press operation that was dedicated to looking after Fauci's media appearances.I dealt with them.We spoke to them about getting Fauci on, when he would do us, where we might get a question in.He had become so big.I didn't realize until these diaries how much he was relishing it.

Look, I think, and in fairness to him, there are, it's 1100 pages, so there are plenty of, plenty of entries alongside things like being sent flowers by Julia Roberts.I mean, look, who's not going to enjoy that?And who's not going to put that in their diary if they're keeping a diary?

Oh, not Julia's flowers.

I know it happens to you a lot, but for the rest of us, it would be a special moment.No, it like, look, so there are lots of other entries in it where he actually does, bits of it he clearly finds uncomfortable.So, you know, it is perhaps not surprising after a lifetime or a career in relative obscurity, to suddenly find oneself at the centre of that must have been giddy and a head rush, particularly in the way that Americans cover politics and how everything becomes celebrity.In a sense, that's his problem, right?He becomesa celebrity.

Yeah.And if you become a celebrity, and I think it actually adverts to in fairness, someone like Witty, he did very well to sort of resist that.If you become a celebrity, then almost by definition, your status as a scientist and as a public official starts to be at the very least contested, because celebrities are always liked and disliked.You know, there are very few celebrities who enjoy universal acclaim.And look, I think, you know, we've got to remember this ultimately, as sort of captivating as the diary stuff is, you know, ultimately, this is not really about Fauci at all.ultimately this is about, and that sort of bizarre attempt at a show trial yesterday, ultimately what this is about is an ongoing contestation in American politics about the role of institutions, political authority, and about expertise, right?

Fauci is not on trial, quote -unquote, or the attempt to put him on trial, quote -unquote, is not about virology, it's about technocracy.It's not about his medical record.It's about his role as a technocrat and the fact that technocracy, expertise in America, has become so, so contested and so part of the partisan debate.We see glimmers of that in this country and parts of it in this country, but it is as nothing compared to America, right?Because what's basically happened, what did COVID do in American politics?It shattered three old assumptions, it seems to me.

One is that scientific expertise sits above politics.It was always more contested in America, but nonetheless.Two, that public institutions will automatically be trusted.And three, that America can unite around a kind of shared vision and version of events.That was largely true to a large extent in the UK, those three things.It certainly wasn't in the United States.

And Fauci has just become a kind of lightning rod for those debates and all of those three things, it seems to me. I think that's a good point.

analysis of where we are.I am struck by how different the debate is in the UK.No one is raging.I mean, you know, look, we've had the whole COVID inquiry into whether mistakes were made over procuring PPE and the fast track and all the rest of that stuff.But there hasn't been that kind of raging debate over the role of medicine, the role that the state played in telling people how to lead their lives in the same way as it is still tearing America apart.

In the UK it's more about the politics, right?It was about hypocrisy, it was about party gay, it was about political action and incompetence.

It was about access to contracts, it was about all those other things, about the people who enrich themselves in corruption.This is about something so fundamental in America and, you know, all the symptoms were there for it.prior to COVID.You know, we had talked about how divisive America had become as a country.People had talked about the fact that there were two people who each had their own, two sets of people who each had their own truths and they couldn't agree on anything.And COVID came along and it became the exemplar.

of all that division and you could funnel all the things that you felt through the COVID and whether your attitudes, what your attitudes were to vaccines, what your attitude was to face coverings, what your attitude was to being told by the state what to do.And the libertarian, and Rand Paul is the extreme example of that, still wants to settle that score and you've got liberal America with, you know, the liberals on the committee also making the point, oh, Dr Fauci, thank you for everything you've done to keep America safe.

Well, I do think that, and I do think like on reflection, and again, I do think we've got a bit of this here, but more so in the US.I think that the way, particularly in American politics, Fauci, I think he sort of embodies actually the inadequacies ofI don't want to do the sort of both -side -ism here, but I genuinely think this, embodies some of the inadequacies of both approaches, both from liberalism and from conservatism, right?Because the left's original position, or sort of progressive thought's original position, and again we have a bit of it here, is basically that questioning experts is just irresponsible, particularly at that time, but we should never question experts.The left has become far more, much more so than it used to be historically, much more institutionalist in every sense.We trust institutions, we trust the authority of institutions, we trust in particular the non -partisan elements of those institutions, officials, scientists, and so on, and to even question or query some of that is dangerous.

And I think they still think that, you know, even though in fairness, in the years since, legitimate questions have emerged and should be asked about, for example, whether school closures were a good idea or the lab leak theory itself, right?I mean, you know, dismissed as conspiracy very early on, much more contestable, right?We might never know, but it's certainly a legitimate question, right?And a legitimate set of questions.The overall costs of lockdown.I mean, I reflect now, Although clearly, you know, I'm glad we live in a country that generally is deferential to expertise, particularly medical expertise and authority and so on.

I do think at times in the pandemic that did go too far.And actually, in the sense for when I reflect now, you know, say covering COVID at the BBC at the time, we were really scared about looking as if at any point we might want to query or question the idea that some of the costs of lockdown were not worth paying.And so, and I think there were particular elements as well, and I sort of reflect on this a lot.For example, when we look at school closures, I am not sure, and I think I'll actually, if this was to happen again, I think we would correct this.I am not sure that even in the first lockdown,that school closures for any length of time were a price worth paying.

I think the long term, we're now seeing plenty of academic literature and evidence to show the damage of that on children, particularly children from the least well -off backgrounds and the most vulnerable kids.I did some reporting on that at the time.Should we have been more vocal and should voices around that have been more vocalised?Maybe.And I think that one of the worries was, or the problems was, that Institutions at the time, including institutions like the BBC, the media wore widely, were especially worried about appearing critical of other institutions.And I think that that is a problem.

And that was a problem.But the thing is, is that even now, with the American left, they don't want to have that debate, because to question someone like Fauci, all of the politics then floods in, because to be fair, on the other side, with the right, they're so nuts.They're not just going, look, let's just ask some legitimate questions here.Let's try to get to the bottom of things, like our COVID inquiry is doing, in fairness.They're saying, this guy wanted to kill people.He was funneling money to Wuhan.

You know, he wanted to destroy your life.You know, they have an agenda, which is to equate expertise and authority with with being antithetical to ordinary people and the way that they live their lives because there is political premium in them for so doing.

saying all this and kind of this and the Fauci diaries and what happened yesterday has brought back you know covering the Covid story from America reporting to an audience in England and I think I was probably part of that institutional bias that you know when they were talking about did it come from a laboratory in Wuhan I was going on the television to say there was absolutely no evidence of this.This is a conspiracy theory being put around by some of those around Donald Trump, on which there is no basis.

And the World Health Organization has reassured saying X, Y and Z. It didn't help when the president referred to it as the Kung Flu, of course.Exactly.And all those jokes that he was

trying at the time.Yeah, exactly.So I think that I understand all of that.I think the difference fundamentally between here, UK, and there, US, is that there, They were ascribing a certain malevolence to the motives of Anthony Fauci by saying there need to be lockdowns, there need to be closures, there need to be masks, there need to be social distancing, there needs to be this and there needs to be that.There was no manual.They were flying blind.

You're a pilot of a plane.You've hit a storm, the likes of which you have never seen before, and which you don't know whether the airplane has the tolerance to withstand it or not.You are making it up as you go along on the basis of your hunches, on the basis of a Spanish flu that was over a century earlier.And you're thinking, jeez, what the hell do we do now?And I think that that was why you got school closes.Yeah.

mistake.We can see the consequences of that today in the mental health of so many young people who go and miss vital years of socialization.

We're not letting people in the room as their relatives died.In retrospect, I think generally a barbarous thing to do.

Of course, but you are, you know, you are, as I say, you are trying, you're making it up as you go along on the basis of what you think.And, you know, funnily enough, in Britain, the attitude was from everything that I can understand, although not being here, was that people were very authoritarian about it.People wanted the government to be taking, we're going to be tough and we're going to have distancing and we're not going to allow it.And you've got people splitting on neighbors.There are 10 people in this back garden.And so I think that that was because you have a situation where, oh my God, the state has to react.

I don't know how we're going to react to this.What can we do to keep as many people as safe as possible?I know we'll do that.I think it was well -meaning.But in America, the view...the right is, no, it wasn't well -meaning.

It was about a power grab.

I agree.And that malevolence and that idea, basically, of experts and people in authority wanting to exert malevolent power.So that is a political agenda that suits their politics, right?And it is pure MAGA and it is, you know, risible in lots of ways.Where I think we went wrong and where I think, again, liberal institutionalists, let's put it that way, on the left or whatever, where, and I think this continues to happen, is that, you know, If something like this were to happen again, what we have to remember is that science is a science is a science, and that's fine as far as it goes, but one of my least favourite things that Boris Johnson used to say in the government at this time is that we're following the science, we're following the science.The science will tell you in these situations, or experts will tell you about what's happening, it is the realm of politics to decide what you do with that information.

And of course, The problem was for me in terms of like being too trusting of expertise at that time or was not so much not trusting what they said, it's entrusting them with telling us what to do, which in fairness Chris Whitty and people like Patrick Vallance always repeatedly said it's not for us to say what the policy solutions should be because politicians have to take a balance and yes undoubtedly it's true that we quote flatten the curve more quickly because we shut down schools and didn't let people see their relatives when they were dying and all of those more extreme things.The question was and should have been at the time and must be again is that a price worth paying for the things that it causes, the externalities that are generated from it, because it ultimately is for politics and for politicians to decide rather than people in authority or, quote, experts to decide for us.And I think that that credulity from the left sometimes towards experts allows that space to open up for malevolent actors or bad actors like Rand Paul and so on, which is they basically say, look,left liberals they just want to hand your life wholesale over to these unelected people who have no legitimacy to make these decisions over your life.So I think if something like this would happen again I think the language about this stuff and a reminder that it is for politics and for politicians ultimately to decide this stuff and to be front and center is most important.

In a moment we'll be back with Louise Casey developing policies on social care, but she's done so much else besides.

Well Baroness Casey, thanks so much for joining us once again in the News Agents studio.I was saying before you came in, I sort of referred to you and you laughed as the government's fixer -in -chief.Do you not think that's fair?How does it feel to be the government's?Whenever there's a problem we'll get Louise in and she'll come and sort it out.

I'm not sure really.I'm not, you know.one.You do your best.

Well, I was reading today and this, I couldn't quite believe this, but the first sort of task force or the first czar, czardom you had was in 2006, Tony Blair.

No, it was 1999.

Oh right, okay.It was 1999.Well, there you are then, the thesis is proven.

1999, homelessness czar.I see, you've had plenty of Zardoms.

More than the Romanoffs, Louise.Let's do it with a C, shall we, rather than a T. We all know what happened to the Romanoffs as well.Maybe we'll talk about that in a little bit, about kind of what it's like to do those jobs.But just given, I mean, we're speaking on the day that Andy Burnham has made that speech in Enfield.It felt like a bit of a moment to me. I mean, a lot of Prime Ministers have obviously spoken about the importance of fixing social care, but I think rarely with such passion.as Burnham did.

Does this feel like it could be, is it Panglossian to think that we're going to be actually fix this at last or on the way to fixing it at last?Or is this different?

No, it definitely feels very different.It feels very personal.I think it's interesting that a lot of people don't really know or think about social care untilkind of happens to somebody in their family or their lives, at which point it takes on a completely different dimension.So most people probably don't even know what it is or why it is or how it is.And then something happens like somebody gets really ill or poorly or disabled or more likely and that relative is getting on, getting old and has a fall.

So it feels very personal for Andy.I think it is because of his dad.But I think when he speaks, he kind of speaks for a lot of us that have got sort of family, friends that are living this world, which is too bloody difficult, too complicated, frankly, not efficient enough where it should be efficient.And a woman on the radio that I was on early this morning talked about having to navigate the system and you think, nah, if public services mean that the public have to navigate them, you're doing something wrong in my view.And I'd say that no matter what job I was in.

Obviously, you were initially tasked and asked to look into this by the Starmer government.And now the timetable for that has been brought forward.Are you happy about that?

Yeah, I'm really happy about that.I mean, I think the thing is that Keir Starmer, Wes Streeting and Rachel Reeves were serious about it or else I wouldn't have said yes.You know, it matters a great deal to me and I don't take on jobs like this just to be a process person or produce a report that, you know, is interesting and helpful but doesn't get anything done.So I was convinced that they would do it.I just think that Andy Burnham has arrived, wants to do it a lot faster.

Why do you think they, I mean, I have to say, I remember when it was announced that you were looking into it and you were going to do the report and thenthey announced a chronology of it.It did seem quite a long lag time.I know these things do take time, but that was political, wasn't it?They just didn't want to confront the costs and the potential politics around it, and they just wanted to shove it to the back end of the parliament.That's the truth, isn't it?

I think some of it was definitely political.We inserted a word, a colleague of mine that I think you've met, put the word by 2028 in, so originally it said to report in 2028 and we slipped, we took the word in out and put the word by in, so I had some sort of sense really if I wanted to bring it in next year then that would be possible.But yeah, I'm not going to sit here and lie, they wouldn't expect me to, nobody would expect me to, that there was a degree of nervousness about this is a big deal and it is a big deal.it really is a big deal.I mean, trying to sort out social care is up there with kind of one of the most biggest, you know, important public service reforms, certainly in the 21st century.And, you know, and that's a big deal.

And I think they thought, and I thought that we would put a really, really good case together of what we could already do better within the existing resources, of which there is some.and then create the consensus for what a kind of care service would look like and how, and then how we would then kind of gauge how we would pay for it towards the later end.And Wes Streeting stood up within days of the announcement and said, if you met Louise, she'll do this in the way that she thinks is right.And so if she wants to bring it in early, she can and she will.So I didn't feel constrained by it.But I'm really pleased to have a kind of bigger commitment to it being a higher priority for

this particular administration.

You said something interesting there, and it's something that the Prime Minister has said that he wants to try and achieve, which is, you use the word consensus and using your report as a basis for consensus.Is that just rather too optimistic?In a sense that, I mean, we've seen some of the response from Nigel Farage today already talking about, you know, invoking the specter of death taxation and all that sort of stuff.But even if you, let's put to one side bad faith actors, if that's what you, if you assume there are some bad faith political actors, like Why should there be consensus on something like this?It's deeply political, right?I mean, basically, it's probably extremely costly.

The questions are who pays for it, how they pay for it.There are questions of fairness and equity and all those sorts of things.I mean, they're fundamentally political questions.So perhaps it's inevitable that political parties coming at things from different political traditions and different political points of view, they're just going to see it differently.And that's legitimate.

It is completely legitimate.I think that the challenge for something like social care is that people don't really, we didn't need it in 1948 when we set up the National Health Service, when we went for full employment, when we set up a welfare benefit system, when we introduced national insurance and national contributions.Since 1948 the population has changed so fundamentally that by 2026 there are 12 million people of pension age.That's a hugely different picture to what it was before.And I think the other thing is that people, and this is a wonderful thing, many people born with disabilities whose life expectancies was incredibly short, their life expectancy now is much, much better.So people are living with disability well and for longer.

And at the same time, the age rangeof the population has changed beyond recognition really.And the other thing, dare I say it, women were in the home in 1948 and we looked after everybody and everything.women now work primarily outside the home, which means doing caring responsibilities is very different.And I think the job of the independent commission is to lay all of that out and try and explain that there's something here which we can agree on, which is we ought to do better.And I looked actually, because of today, I went back through the ping pong of the political history just since 2009, like which politician said what at what time.

death tax to dementia tax, do we do, deal not, no we won't do, deal not, oh then we'll have another go, no we won't.And the kind of political football around it.The truth is, whoever is in government has to face down the issue, which is there are 12 million people who are now elderly.In 1948, there were six people of working age making contributions to every one elderly person.Now there are three people, three people of working age making contributions to every one elderly person and we're set to go down to two.So something has to give here and that in a way, how you go about it, could be different, but something has to give.

And I think the other thing about the 22 previous reviews is I think in the post -war settlement, to sound like an old person for a minute, I've been around too long, but in the post -war settlement...

You've not been around for the whole post -war settlement.

No, I haven't, that's true, or else I'd be doing very well.But if you think about it, we've never really re -engaged with the public about who do they think should get, what is care?Who do they think should get it?How much should they look after themselves?um how much dothey have an appetite for us looking after each other?

And what do they, what do they think the state should do?And how should the state pay for it?

I was going to ask you about that.I mean, when you were asked to do it, and obviously the timeline has now been expedited, but when you were asked to do it, was there any part of you that thought, and I must admit, this was kind of my initial reaction reading about it, and other people sort of said similarly, did any part of you think, well, what's kind of, what's the point?In a sense, as you say, there have been 22 previous attempts to do something about it.Some of them have involved reports and commissions like yours, the Dilnot one being the most notable.Aren't the options quite well known?The problems are well known.

Why does it need a new report to crystallise anything in particular?Don't you just need politicians to decide what they want to do and go for it?

Well, no, I don't think people do understand in many circumstances that at the moment, we've got the world of the National Health Service, which we might as well call the National Hospital Service, because it's pulled up and out of communities, the sort of smaller and smaller numbers of district nurses and teams like that that go out into communities and look after people, the same way that we don't prevent anybody, if somebody falls over, it's not about getting them into A &E so they sit there for 12 hours or lie there for 12 hours on a trolley, it's about getting help to them in the home.We have a, if you, it's a bit like, you know, you run a hostel, right, and your hostel is full of, I don't know, kids leaving care.One day you sort out the fact that kids who leave care will not end up homeless.You don't need to keep running a hospital for people who are care leavers.We run hospitals for a population which has changed in the last 80 years to the population that is much more frail and elderly and therefore you have to change the way you do public services.This isn't just about money, it's about a complete mindset change in both the NHS

as well as in local government and in families.And I think that, to me, the prize is that the public aren't ending up, just because you get more money for it, what are you going to do?Put that into an already failing system that is impossible for the public to navigate, with 15 minute appointments on a shoestring when actually somebody might need 25 minutes one day and five minutes the next.I mean the system is dysfunctional and I'm a great believer in don't throw good money after bad.We need to start with sorting the system out and then work out how you fund it.But I suppose what I'm saying is that those options are well known, aren't they?

They're not well known.Nobody else has said, I mean, nobody, you know, the irony is nobody else is saying we need to take a fresh look at what adult services are and how that interacts with the NHS.The politics is always going on the money.So what everybody in politics is obsessed about is, is this a death tax or not?That's a political choice.So it turns into a political debate and tennis or football or whatever around the political choices, the hard choices you have to make about are you going to tax people or not tax people and that in a way we're already spending money of our own and taxes on social care.

But I suppose what I'm saying is that yeah I get all that and I get the idea that of course it becomes a political football but in a way I mean, those political battles have to be won in order to achieve the things that you're, you know, potentially going to propose.I mean, for example, there was no consensus on the creation of the NHS in 1948.I mean, Churchill's literally going around calling it a Gestapo, but no one questions it now.But that's not because someone like you came along and said, here's my report, let's do it.It's because a Labour leadership and a Labour government, just to use that as an example, had a political programme, they had an idea, and then Iren Bevan said, this is what we're going to do.And he did it.

I mean, isn't thatultimately what it's going to require with social care?It doesn't matter how many superb reports that are written by you or anybody else.You need the political will and a political communicator, and that could be Burnham, to go out and achieve it.

I have a different take on that history, but leave that to one side.I think that the more that we're able to evidence the need for change, the easier that is for any political party to adopt it and push it forward.I am not sitting here saying that just by writing a report and involving the public in what it looks like doesn't mean there won't be hard choices at the end of it.Or tough politics.Or indeed very tough politics.I don't dispute that for a minute.

What I don't think we've done properly enough is involve the public in their own choices about what they think should be there and how they think it should be paid for.Which then, that's why we're doing the big conversation to try and kind of give people that they bloody well know when it hits them.I mean, and the other thing is, I mean, it could be because I'm 61, but you know, I have plenty of experiences including personal of people whose parents have become elderly and infirm and have dementia and Alzheimer's.I fought for my own mother to get into a hospice many, many years ago and felt this utter and complete relief when we finally got her into the hospice where she died less than 48 hours later.And I think it was the greatest gift that we could give her to die in peace in that place rather than this horrendous medical situation in the hospital.So I think until you experience it, it is hard to convey how important social care and good health care is actually.

Sorry, I went off on that.I think partlyjob is always to help manage the politics of then leaving the hard choices to then finally is a matter of the ballot box and for the public in a different way.

I suppose I'm getting a bit dragged into this or whatever, but I think it is interesting.I suppose, in a way, I wonder, do you think that that model of politics, is it of effecting change?Is it where you basically get someone who is very august and eminent like yourself and they come along and they lay out all of the proposals that you or whoever it is think should happen and it's really well evidenced and all of that sort of thing, as Beveridge did, perhaps the best example of all.And then does that require a frankly, a type of politics that we no longer have, which is actually a more rational politics, and one where people are interested in evidence, and they're interested in, and actually willing to defer to a slightly more technocratic kind of type of governance and politics, because that's what it is.Do we still have that now?Because it feels to me like we might not, and that maybe therefore, that isn't necessarily the way that you achieve the consensus you're talking about, if it's even possible.

I mean, I think that's, I think that's fair.I do think beverage laid the groundwork for people to make tough political choices.And I'm hoping that what we're doing, but particularly by this access into the public involvement of it, which will go right across the general public, looking at all of the issues I think need to be looked at, including who do you think you should support?Who are you happy to pay your taxes towards?Who aren't you prepared to pay your taxes towards?I think I want to have some of those difficult conversations, but what you'll write about is, even when all is said and done, and you can write an absolutely superb report, it is how

you use the vehicle of a report to essentially create an intervention in doing something different.I know this is so nerdy, I realise.You've come to the right place.I was looking at Alan Milburn's earlier thing on needs, not this week, on young people.

The one report you weren't asked to do.

Thank God, I was a bit busy.I've had enough.It's all right.Happy to share.Happy to share.And Alan's brilliant.

But I rang him and said, you have just staged an intervention.You've just done something which isn't just writing a report and leaving it on the shelf.You have actually changed the public dialogue about what we should be doing about this lost million people, young people, and I admired him.And it wasn't just him, it's his team, it's the way he's put it together.But it'd be pretty hard for any political party to say, Do you know what, we don't give a damn about those million young people, isn't it?

I mean, you just mentioned, I mean, you spoke quite marvellingly there of Beveridge, William Beveridge, people don't know.I mean, one of the very, very famous report talking about the five giants basically established a kind of theoretical framework in a way for the establishment of the welfare state, one of the best selling book reports of its time, hundreds of thousands of copies sold.Did you see in a way, what you're trying to do is something akin to that with social care, what Beveridge did with the NHS and welfare state.

Well, I suppose it's a more modern version, you know, there's a portal and a website.

Beveridge didn't have that, didn't need it.

You didn't need it and don't expect people to buy any report anytime soon.

No, people had less to do.

trying to renegotiate the social contract, I suppose, is how nerds might put it, I think is really important.I think that we have lost our sense of, I You know, full employment was one of the important tenants of the original welfare state, that we went for full employment so people could work and then they could contribute.And when you contribute, great.And then when I fall on a hard time or you have a baby or whatever, you get some money to help you carry on and that there's something for something culture.And I'm genuinely interested in like, do we still have that something for something culture?I mean, we saw it during COVID, like, thousands of people were furloughed to 80 % of their income.

There were others that weren't, I know, but it was one of the biggest uses of the welfare state to keep people afloat in one of the worst times in our history.And I noticed those things as it were, and I think they're interesting.I would want my taxes and national insurance to go towards those families that were furloughed.

And I want to talk about the British state a little bit more widely, but before we get there, just on social care, finally.I mean, Andy Byrne, the Prime Minister today, seemed to all but concede that some further taxation will be necessary to fix this system, won't it?We're going to have to devote substantially more resources if we're serious about dealing with it systemically.Is that what you think?

I think that we need to do it genuinely.I want to know if we do reform, does that save money?I think it will.Before I start thinking about the kind of people that are basically back of the envelope saying it's this billion, it's that billion.I think, I think I'm not stupid, that I thinkmoney will probably be needed to help sort this out but I think we've got to prove that money that's currently being spent on it is being spent well.

What's your, I mean obviously it's very early days, what's your impression of working with Andy Burnham?I mean you were quite close I think to Keir Starmer, I think he thought a lot of you.What are the differences between the two men from what you've observed?

Well, I don't really know.I've known both of them for quite a long time.Tessa Jowell was somebody that Andy Byrne and I have in common.He was her spad.I think I was the homelessness at the time when I first met Tessa Jowell.We both admired her greatly.

We have very much stayed in touch over the years.I think on this program, when I was doing the grooming gang's work, I said I'd met Andy.and he was one of the people that made me think, yep, we need to make a version of a statutory inquiry because as the mayor for Manchester, Greater Manchester, he didn't feel he had the powers to get to the truth of what was going on.So I've known Andy Burnham a long time, I like and admire him.I've known Keir Starmer for a long time since he was the Director of Public Prosecutions and I like and admire him too.

his leaving office?

I am a great believer that it's probably not right for me to, I never have strayed into commenting on politics and political people like that.I feel that we needed, by then it was clear to me that a change probably was needed and I felt my job was to try and make sure that that was as graceful dignified as possible for all parties concerned, and I mean that by human beings.

There was some suggestion that he wanted you to come and work for him in Number 10.Was that ever put to you?Which one?Keir Starmer.

Well, I was the lead Ned for, I am the lead Ned.

I know, but I think it was a suggestion about, you know, chief of staff or something like that.

I have, everybody knows, I have not gone political in that way and I will stay that way.

As you've said, I mean, and we've said, you have led a lots of different reports, inquiries into different aspects of the British state.You led the landmark review into the Metropolitan Police, you said that they were institutionally racist.Obviously there's been another accusation recently about the Metropolitan Police about institutional racism, which is that they are not just the Metropolitan Police, police more generally I should say, which is that there is a so -called two -tier policing and that the accusation has been made by reform politicians for example to say that there is systemic discrimination against white people in the police or there's two -tier policing.given your experience, what did you make of that claim?

So, I mean, the truth is everything could all be true at the same time.And I've absolutely no doubt that if you're black and live in London, you are going to experience a level of racism that a white person living in London will not experience.That then plays into the institutions, including the Metropolitan Police and other institutions.At the same time, and I am not commenting on that particular case, I can see that there will be other examples where people are so rigid and uptight that they then get things wrong, and that can play out in many other different ways.So I would be quite surprised to think that after so many decades and centuries of essentially by having a black or brown skin, suddenly I'm the superior race, as it were, that is existing and raining down on people that are white.So as I can see in this country, the white majority,

the majority of us are white and we do not experience the same racism as people that are black and Asian.

And just briefly finally, I said, actually I thought it was 2006 you tell me, it's actually the late 90s that your first Zardum came your way or the first review.Just, you've obviously seen so many different bits of the British state up close, I mean that's to look at it and investigate them.How do you think the British state has changed in that time?Do you think it generally has in terms of public services, how it interacts with the public?Has it generally got worse?It feels like there are so many institutional questions increasingly about how the British state works, dissatisfaction with it, or is that overdone and actually in some ways it's got better?

I don't know, you're just general reflections on it.

I mean, I think in some ways we sort of bank all the stuff that we think is fine and we don't even think about it being the British state from, you know, the way we get our, I don't know, TV licenses to gov .uk and driving licences, how we pay for things over the internet, what happens with your council, how your bins are taken away, how you can find out when it is, the fact that transport in many ways has improved so much and how easy it is to get rail cars.We just bank all of those good things and sometimes focus on the bad things.The one thing I would say is I think that certainly in the centre of the sort of civil service, which is where I inhabit, I sometimes have worried in the last few years that getting things done has become harder than ever.It's like taking action isn't having a meeting, taking action is actually, I don't know, something changing.And I don't quite know what has happened.

I left in 2016, 2017, came back during COVID, and then I'm back again.And somehow the sort of muscle memory of getting things done just feels so hard.I suppose that's a slightly niche answer to your question but it's very much one that's concerning me at the moment.

Louise Casey, Baroness Casey, Fixer -in -Chief of the British Constitution.Thank you so much.So one of the stories that we haven't had much time or any time to get into this week but is really interesting, sort of just bubbling away, has been a really quite a rapid decline, a fall in the stocks and prices for many tech firms around the world, particularly tech firms which are making chips.Now there's lots of particular reasons for this, but it has taken lots of people by surprise, not least because in recent days and years, something we've talked about on the show before, there has just been one sort of almost kind of exponential rise in the value of AI -related firms around the world, leading some people to conclude that maybe we are heading for a bubble.And on tomorrow's show, we're going to be talking about the biggest bubble of all, which is the Wall Street crash a century or so ago, and what lessons we might learn from that for the next big crash to come.That's all on The News Agents tomorrow.

We'll see you then.Bye -bye.Bye -bye.The News Agents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity.This has been a global production.