From next month, employers can decide whether staff should return to their workplaces. Now on bbc news, adam fleming, Laura Kuenssberg and fergus walsh discuss the latest on the coronavirus crisis. Laura, what was amazing today was just how much news there was. Every hour, there was another massive story and i was like, oh, well talk about that for a long time in tonights episode, and then along came another news story. Waves and waves and waves and waves of Important News crashing down all around us, but one storyjumps out above all else, and weve got amazing people to talk about that with tonight. Yeah, were going to talk about russia and what russia has maybe been doing in the uk in this edition of newcast. Newcast. Newcast from the bbc. Hello. Its adam in the studio. And laura in the same studio, still two metres apart. Still. And chris in my socially distant layer of news, still down the corridor. Right, do you think there are going to be any russian actors tuning in tonight . By russian actors, i dont mean people who are in the russian version of home and away, i mean the russian actors that the government today identified as kind of getting a bit involved in the last general election by getting hold of some secret Government Data about trade talks with america and then getting it out there to be part of the election. I dont know if there will be because, in as much as i hope that as many people enjoy what we do and our rambling conversations late on a thursday night as possible, im not sure i really want to invite that kind of attention but, goodness me, not one but two absolutelyjaw dropping stories today about russian interference in what happens in this country and the west, particularly that Russian Hackers linked to the russian state tried to steal information
about the Coronavirus Vaccine work thats going on here and in canada and america. Absolute jaw dropper. And heres how dominic raab, the foreign secretary, explained it all. With our us and canadian counterparts, we have also made it clear, and we have released a statement indicating that we know the russian intelligence agencies have been targeting, in terms of cyberattacks, against efforts across those three countries and here in the uk, our attempt to find a vaccine to research and development to coronavirus. I think thats pretty appalling, i have to say. Right, lets discuss this with two people who know all about russia and its actors. Its Pauline Neville jones, baroness neville jones, who is a former diplomat and a former minister and was a chair of thejoint intelligence committee. Hello. And well speak to author, journalist and expert misha glenny. Hello, misha. Hello. He was the author of mcmafia,
which was then turned into a super glitzy tv show. Press any number. What number . Any number, mama. The year i was born. Nothings happening. Now press zero. Siren blares. Misha, before we talk about the serious stuff, the showbiz stuff, the tv show is fiction but your book is actual fact, isnt it . Thats right, yes. Mine was a Nonfiction Book and then transformed into a fabulous drama by hossein amini, the writer, and james watkins, the director. Now, baroness neville jones, i mean this in the nicest way, but youve been in this world for a few decades now. Did the stuff that came out today
about what russias been doing surprise you in any way or did you just think, oh, here they go again more here they go again. However, i think that anybody who is engaged in that kind of work would have known there was a threat, and the government will have known there was a threat, and they will have been a very considerable effort made to protect the work they are doing. We dont know, we havent been told, we dont know whether any of the penetration was successful. But i would think that it will have been a very hard target for the russians. That wont have stopped them trying. And ive been slightly taking the mickey out of the phrase russian actors, but why did the government describe it in that way . Why didnt they just want to say the russian government tried to intervene in the election, whereas they went a little bit further when they were talking about the cyberattacks on the Coronavirus Research . Well, the russians, not only by the russians, but the russians certainly employ other groups to do their dirty work, so almost certainly in this case,
this apt group of what was it, 29 or something, probably a group of individuals who are being paid to do this hacking. And thats a very common technique. Its part of the deniability. Its alsojust part of the way they operate. In your view and from your experience, would this kind of thing happen, this audacious attempt to get hold of information about the Coronavirus Vaccine which, lets not forget, is the key to getting the whole of the globe and everybodys economy back to Something Like normal, could that kind of thing have happened without president putin being aware of it, either implicitly or explicitly . I would think they have a rolling agenda. This would have been an obvious item on it. I expect he is aware, yes. I mean, hell get briefings and theyll be telling him what they are doing. Did they need to go to him for authorisation in the first place . I should think it was proposed to him. So its a normal part of their agenda. I think we have to reckon that anything of any value that is taking place is going to be the object of attack. Misha, can i ask you about cozy bear and the dukes that weve been hearing about today . It sounds like a support act at a gig, but tell me about these organisations and how they fit into the broader russian intelligence infrastructure. Well, cozy bear is the more cuddly name for what pauline identified as apt29. Apt stands for this advanced persistent threat, and there is now a taxonomy of hacker groups around the world. This has been going on since the beginning of lockdown. It was actually the National CyberSecurity Centre which has been quoted today which, after about a week, ten days into lockdown, they said that a company
round the corner from where i am in acton had been attacked by a Russian Group called maze. Ironically, that Russian Group, a week earlier, said that it wasnt going to attack anyone during lockdown, so so much for that. They were clearly after research on covid. I think the reason why they are doing that is because actually one of the areas where russia is very weak is the development of medicines and health care facilities. Actually, what they are doing here is they are in a very vulnerable position. Like many authoritarian governments, not all, but many, theyve mishandled the covid pandemic badly. Infection rates are continuing to grow, as are death rates. And they are just trying to get a vaccine on the cheap, as far as i can see. Misha, should we be worried about the russians abilities . Have they done what they did with kind of Nuclear Weapons in the cold war
but with laptops now . Yes. So russia is in a very weak position economically. Its dependent on one industry. Around 60 of its foreign earnings come from hydrocarbons, from the sale of oil and gas and, of course, the price of oil has gone through the floor during covid. So it has a very distorted economy, and that means it cant invest properly in technology. It is way behind china and the us, its main competitors, and so, in order to maintain its superpower status, which it has by dint of the residual Nuclear Arsenal from the cold war, then what it has to do with america
and the european union, the nato alliance, is encourage discord and fragmentation, and thats really been the strategy for the past eight years or so. Its encouraged britain leaving the eu. Its encouraged fractions within nato and, of course, above all else, its encouraged the election of an utterly chaotic american president. So, as far as they are concerned, for very little outlay with these disinformation campaigns, and the occasional bit of hacking as well, theyve had spectacular outcomes, in terms of how it affects their relative power and how they are perceived in the world. Baroness neville jones, is russia therefore, in your view, acting kind from a position of strength, because by messing with peoples heads they are exerting influence, or are they acting because of weakness, because they dont have the kind of brute strength that they used to as a superpower . I think its the second. By any normal definition, russia is a declining power with decreasing economic performance, becoming in effect the junior partner in relationship with china, and one of their mechanisms is to try and make life difficult for their neighbours. And its built into, i think, the way they see the world and the way they operate so that accounts for the way in which they feel its perfectly 0k to come and do other things like skripal. Its thoroughly amoral, but also i think declining influence in the world. But a very troublesome one, and they can do us a lot of damage, and misha is absolutely right in his analysis. I think whats different, the one thing that is different
is that, for a long time, there were some governments didnt say very much. Theyve now taken to actually making it public, particularly when youve got something as distinctive and as important as the attempt to steal Coronavirus Vaccine information. More generally, i think, increasingly i think western governments feel it important and necessary to alert their own Public Opinions to whats going on. Ive got to ask both of you, have either of you been the victim of really ham fisted russian intelligence, when they were more like the keystone cops and it was totally obvious they were trying to get at you . I think misha is a more likely target than me. I was, in the good old days, before the collapse of the berlin wall. I had a few desultory recruitment attempts by the czechs, and i was detained once in russia and arrested once in serbia,
but they were different issues. What did they say to you when they tried to recruit you, and were they wearing a shabby raincoat . No, funnily enough, he was a scientist, or he purported to be a scientist because, at the time, astonishingly for all concerned, i was the correspondent for new scientist, covering eastern europe. So it was very convenient, because i knew nothing about science, and new scientist knew nothing about eastern europe, so we rubbed along very well. And i was invited by this mysterious czech scientist to come and discuss matters of environmental policy, and he spent the entire time very successfully getting me drunk and then trying to recruit me on behalf of czech intelligence, and he failed, because i was too drunk by then. That is a great story. Pauline, quick question about next week, because we are going to get more russia in the news, arent we, with this long anticipated russia report, which was produced by the intelligence and security committee, and we thought wed see it last year, and then it was put off, to much frustration from many. We are going to get it before parliament breaks up for the summer, looking at alleged interference in the Eu Referendum and the election in 2017. What do you anticipate might be in that . Well, youre asking me i dont know. Im going to make clear that i have no secret information. I think there will be quite a lot of information about not only what they did but how they did it, and i think that will be of real interest, the kind of techniques that are used and the extent to which they use artificial intelligence, means other than simply distortion and misinformation. I would think the technology is certainly being used in this area. There may be more difficult stuff, from a Party Political point of view, that individuals and donations and all of those things, and i think we may get quite a, whats the word i want. Rich sort of mixed bag of information. Thats a whitehall way of saying something that might be really embarrassing for the government. Misha, quickly, what do you expect . Well, im very keen to see this. Some of it, of course, may be redacted, but ijust have to say that holding it back before the election, when it had been signed off by the intelligence agencies, i thought this was a despicable thing to do, and i will be looking at it very, very carefully to see why it was that it was being held back. Unless of course, there are lots of reductions when it comes out, it is alljust, like, black blobs and it was like, oh, we waited
all this time for this. It is also possible, someone suggested to me today, but i dont know if they were trying to throw me off the scent. It was suggested to me that it might not be that interesting after all, but it may create an overall picture, with lots of information that is actually already out there in the public domain, but everyone waits with bated breath and it could be as soon as monday, so watch this space. Yeah. Misha and pauline, thank you very much, that was really interesting, thank you. Youre welcome. See you again soon. Ok, if you live in leicester, well, you havent had the same experience as people in the rest of england, because they have had their own special mini lockdown, because rates of infection were so high. The rates of infection have gone down, but not enough for the lockdown to be fully lifted, so lets talk to one of the leicester mps, its liz kendall, hello, liz. Hello. What are the new rules for people in leicester now . Well, the good news is non essential retail can open now,
but unfortunately the hospitality sector cannot and all the travel restrictions still apply. So, i think my constituents across the city will be desperately disappointed. I mean, they have made huge sacrifices already so far and having to continue to be in lockdown is just very, very difficult. But the amazing thing is that people are going the extra mile because they know that we have got to get on top of this virus. What kinds of concerns are people coming to you with, liz . We have just been inundated. So, businesses, you know, businesses, restaurants, who had spent a fortune getting stock in to reopen, all that money has gone to waste. You know, hairdressers, who brought in all the safety precautions and spent lots of time and effort, couldnt reopen. People are worried, that if they are on furlough now
and were still in lockdown when the government starts reducing furlough payments, if the business isnt open, they wont be able to top up and get the furlough, so they could lose theirjobs. Universities are worried about what International Students will think, our tourism sector, with the discovery of richard iii, what is that going to mean . All sorts of issues and concerns and this is coming at a time when, i mean, you will know what it is like, being in lockdown, the anxiety and stress, to have this again, on top, has been unbelievably difficult. And then you have the added oddity with these local lockdowns that there are these, well, lines drawn on the map, that distinguish potentially halfway down a street, a load of houses that are within the lockdown zone and across the road, those that are not. I mean, that is what, lots of the e mails i am getting, are, you know, why cant so and so on one half of the street, why are they not in lockdown and we are . What if people are going out into the county . All of that, it doesnt make sense to people. And i think one of the things that the government really needs to do, is to learn lessons from what has happened and the mistakes that have been made. I think that the real chaos and confusion that was started right at the beginning of this, the leicester lockdown, where it was briefed in a sunday newspaper. We did not get the details until days afterwards. The police were really struggling to get all the right information. Actually dealing with it, really calmly and confidently. This virus exploits ambiguity and i know how difficult this pandemic is, it is one of the hardest things any government has ever dealt with, but you dont have to be einstein
to realise, you dont brief lockdown in a newspaper without. And you dont do it without having all of the plans in place and i think the government really needs to learn from that. Liz, some of the ambiguity at the start of this came from sir peter salisbury, the labour mayor of leicester who said, we dont really have a problem, then, we do have a problem, but lockdown wouldnt fix it, then it was, yeah, here is a lockdown. And also on the geographical point, matt hancock in the house of commons today was saying, the geographical extent of the leicester lockdown has been put forward by the local authority, which is run by labour councillors, isnt it . On that point, there was no map of the lockdown until we had to draw it, and that is exactly what i mean. If you had involved the Council Earlier on, to get that sorted, we would not have faced the problem. And, actually, the issue here is not the mayor of leicester, the issue is that the government did not share that really essential, pillar two, which is Community Testing data, until very late on, even when they did, it took them another 11 days to give us the postcode data. I think the government has been too
slow, theyre being too centralised, and they have failed to recognise that when you are put into an extra lockdown and businesses and employees and our Public Services are doing the right thing, they do actually need some extra support in doing that, which has so far failed to materialise. Just briefly and lastly, probably, do you think, though, the local lockdown being extended has actually meant more importantly you are now on top of the disease in the city . Because, for all of the confusion and clearly not everyone has been happy with how it has been handled, is the disease now receding because of the extra measures and everyones patience . The extra measures, messages, testing, is helping to bring those infection rates down. Who knows, if we had had the data and had that sharing of information earlier on, we might have been able to avoid the lockdown. You know, i am desperate
for children to go back to school, businesses to get up and running again, but the priority has got to be getting to grips with this virus, bringing those rates down, because that is the only way our amazing city is going to emerge from this. And i do think it will emerge from this stronger than before. Liz, thank you very much. Lovely to have you back on telly, on thursday nights, in the late night political slot its not really late enough for me, though and we dont have any booze. I remember seeing those empties after that show the next morning, in the office. Red wine, across the newsroom, at half past midnight. Blimey. Liz, thank you very much. Blue nun blue nun. Blue nun, we will have to get some for after the holidays. And good luck to everyone in leicester and especially to newscaster fiona who got in touch, because she has had to now cancel her holiday to cornwall, twice. Oh no because, of course, if you live in leicester, youre not really meant to be leaving leicester and there is all sorts of stuff about, do people get refunds
for the holidays and stuff like that . And some countries in europe, for example, belgium, are saying, dont come to belgium if you are from leicester. So, the ripples of this do spread out quite a long way and if youre not from leicester, you dont really appreciate that. To fiona and everyone else in leicester who is watching to fiona and everyone else in leicester who is watching tonight, i hope the situation gets better soon. Now, we are mentally at least heading to york, beautiful city, so beautiful, the government is thinking of relocating something there, it might be a government hub, so some civil servants, or a bit of a department, but there is also speculation that it might be the entire parliament, although that speculation was quite quickly dampened down after a few hours today, by jacob rees mogg. That was in the house of commons in westminster. Where it seems to be staying. Between 1301 and 1335, parliament met in york 11 times, but when edward iv tried to get it to move to york, it was unsuccessful. And so it will end up being a matter for parliamentarians
as to where this house sits. Though, strictly speaking, the meeting of parliament is called by the sovereign to her palace of westminister and that, i think, is something that it would be highly unlikely to change, without the acceptance of parliamentarians. Laura, it was the Prime Minister himself who mooted the idea of going to york in a letter that was released today. It was. It was not that this idea has come completely falling down from a blue sky, the government is thinking seriously about putting bits of the government apparatus out of london and one of them might be moving a bit of parliament, because, in case you dont know, some bits of parliament are falling down and crumbling, they have got to get the builders in, so there is a lot of planning and discussion about where they should go, during the move. But the idea of mps voting for lots of disruption to their own lives . We might be waiting
a while for that one. But, lets talk about what could go to york and what a warm welcome will await whoever does end up there, with rick witter, who is a singer, songwriter and frontman of shed seven. Hello, rick. Hello, are you all right . Yeah. You know what . Lets just remind ourselves of some of your finest work. I never said never, ever. You took the words right out of my mouth. Rick, which track is that . Thats going for gold, but its an acoustic version. I dont know where you dug that up from. From our extensive shed seven collection, actually. Chris mason is a proud yorkshireman, he has multiple discs from every yorkshire act. So, were not sure who is going to end up in york, government wise, parliament wise, but will they like it if they do move there . Well, theyd be daft not to. I mean, it is more, would we like it
if they came here, really. What do you mean . We dont want any undesirables moving in, do we . Laughter. I am imagining the sea of scarlet and white and red robes, rambling down the shambles of a lunchtime, going for a sandwich. And that was just our last video shoot laughter. I can picture it now. You know, if it is the house of lords, you know, uncharitable sorts say it is gods waiting room, moving to gods own county. Oh, the headlines write themselves, rick yeah, they really do, but you know, i mean, obviously it would be a bit daft moving the entire thing up here. I dont think there would be room, really. I think they should maybe look somewhere like swindon, maybe that has got a little bit more room to it, but, you know, it is all pie in the sky, isnt it, until the fat lady sings, so to speak. Why do you think that people in westminster would choose york as a place to be . Someone was joking to me this week, actually, it is the most westminster thing ever to think, oh, we have got to get some stuff out of the south east, so we are going to pick. I dont know, you know, probably the most picturesque city in the west of england, which is really small, really compact, full already of tourists, and somewhere where there is relatively high employment, it is pretty affluent, you know, rather than going to a part of the north of england that actually is more down at heel. Why do you think they have chosen york, do you think . I think you have just answered your own question there, havent you . Maybe the fact that it is pretty central really in the country, were not that far down from scotland in that respect, you know, train journeys from here to london, on a train it is two hours. It is a Pleasant Drive to get down south, so maybe they are looking at it geographically a little bit more. But, yes, as you rightly say, it is not a massive city. An awful lot happens here anyway, due to tourism and whatnot, so, you know, i cant really see
it fitting in. Certainly if they were going to move the whole kit and caboodle up here, no. Do you, as a york resident, feel abandoned, forgotten, ignored by the elite in london . I dont think we have ever felt part of it, to be honest, it has alwaysjust been down there, hasnt it . People are always voicing concerns and you either get heard or you dont, but, yeah, i mean we are very lucky living where we do. It is a lovely city. You know, it isjust one of those awkward situations, isnt it . What would happen logistically if suddenly you are seeing bojo stumbling around the streets . And rick, tell us about this rule about scots within the york city walls, because im getting worried for adam and laura, trying to report on parliament, when it decamps to gods own county . Well, there, you see, that is a rule apparently that is still in place. It is still lawful. You can certainly shoot a scottish person within the city walls of york with a crossbow and not get arrested for and not get arrested for it. Oh dear. Its not just us, what about the snp, they are the third Biggest Party blimey i think there is a lot to sort out before this is actually going to happen. It has been very nice to hear and it is lovely to imagine york in all its glory. Thank you very much. See you in, like, seven years, maybe im not sure if im ever going to go back. Ive been to york. Moving out. Just leave your crossbow for me, rick. That is a classic yorkshire welcome there, chris. Thanks, rick. No worries. Remind me to tell you about the night out i had in york with Harold Bishop from neighbours once. 0h, we have run out of time. It is the end of the programme what . This must not be allowed no, we dont have time. That really is it. And we dont have a programme to talk about it on the television forfull shame possibilities until september, right . Yes, we will be back at the start
of september, but remember, you can listen to newscast, the podcast all day every day if you want. Bye, everyone. Bye. Newscast. Newscast, from the bbc