Now on Bbc News newscast. My new walking boots are properly broken in now, they are so comfy, i love them. I have heard about your bike, but i did not know about the boots. Oh, i am like 90 outdoors now. And after going to cornwall, i even like beaches now, i never liked them before. How did you work wearing the boots . So, i went for a big long hike with some friends outside chichester, in the beautiful countryside, and i happen to come across a sign for the local elections, for a candidate called Jeremy Hunt. But it is an old man with a moustache. I was like, that is notJeremy Hunt so, i said to the team, get meJeremy Hunt, but lucky dip, dont Tell Me which one you have got. Who is booked for Newscast Tonight . Have we booked the wrong one . WhichJeremy Hunt have we got . Well, if i met that other Jeremy Hunt campaigning for a local council seat, do you know what i would say to him . I would say, you have got the wrong last name for going into politics. Laughter. Oh, its thatJeremy Hunt we have got pleasure to see you, jeremy. Have you met the other Jeremy Hunt . Do you know, there is a Jeremy Hunt local councillor in sussex, were you in sussex . Or were you in cornwall . I was in sussex. Yes. I have met him on zoom, actually and i think i met him In The Flesh as well. So, i have probably had that exact conversation with him. Well, jeremy, you will be relieved to hear that unlike the last edition of newscast that you are on, we do not have a quiz about an obscure british foreign territory to test your knowledge as a former Foreign Secretary. We are going to be asking you about your work on the health select Committee And Covid on this edition of newscast. Hello, it is adam in the studio, with. Chris, in the studio. For my second week in a row. Here On My Own last week, when you guys were at the g7 in cornwall, but, yeah, being in here and face to face contact, this isjust terrific. And very out of character for me, i am tempted to give you a hug, which is not my sort of thing at all, but it is so nice. It is great, it does make it weird though to imagine that back in the brexitcast days, there were four of us in the studio, which just now feels very, very. Well, weird in the context of the pandemic, but very kind of Un British in that we were all very shoulder to shoulder. Like a kuensberg and an adler in between this tiny gap. This feels close enough. Anyway, filling the gap virtually for those two is our guest for this edition, it isJeremy Hunt, former Health Secretary and now chair of the health select committee. Hello hi, good evening. Right, we could do a two hour long episode with you, because there is a lot of stuff to talk about, whether it is covid. Seven hours well, if you have got that time available there is a precedent. We will dive into that, but actually what was it like questioning Dominic Cummings for seven entire hours a couple of weeks ago . It must have been a real test of your stamina as a chairman and an inquisitor. Well, there was a little bit of trying to manage the Loo Breaks in that kind of thing, but, you know, to his credit, there wasnt a single boring minute over an entire seven hours and he had been going for about half an hour and we had in our mind it would be about three and a half hours, something like that, and i wrote a little note to Greg Clark, my co chair, saying, i think we have just got to let this one run for as long as it takes. It isjust so important what we are hearing. And it was. It was absolutely fascinating. Jeremy, i wonder what your reflections were on Dominic Cummings before the hearing and how they changed once the seven hours were up . Well, before the hearing i had him in my mind as a sort of svengali genius type, in the way that perhaps Steve Hilton was for David Cameron, someone who is licensed to think blue sky, think out of the box, shake things up. After the hearing, i came away actually pretty impressed with his intellect and his originality, but i also thought this is someone who is political to his fingertips. The ferocity of his attacks on some individuals, but not wanting to touch other individuals, this was someone who plans things through very carefully and really understands the politics of every situation he has been in. It then triggered a series of events, because a few weeks after that hearing, you then had Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary himself, in to defend himself against all those claims made by Dominic Cummings and people said he was quite kind of calm and he was rattled and he seemed to have kind of a good answer for everything, but then that seems to have provoked Dominic Cummings who then this week wrote his now infamous Sub Stack, which is the new Newsletter Service he is using and there was a series of very foul mouthed screen grabs from borisjohnson, sent to the phone of Dominic Cummings which he shared but there is one we can read out, which is about ventilators and Ppe And Borisjohnsonjust replies to that message from Dominic Cummings, back in 2020. So, jeremy, what did you think reading the Sub Stack and the screen grabs, whatsapp messages . I thought, that in a pandemic, it is not actually that surprising that a Prime Minister might be doing a bit of effing and blinding about other Cabinet Ministers. I could easily imagine the same kind of thing happening when David Cameron was Prime Minister and indeed when Theresa May was Prime Minister, but without the effing and blinding, because she would never do that. I was not terribly surprised, if you think about the pressure that number 10 was under in that period and things were going wrong, so i did not read too much into that. I am sure that i have had Prime Ministers who have said things about me during my nine years in the cabinet at various moments and i think that is just part of what happens. Jeremy, i wonder where you feel this leaves Matt Hancock personally, because if any of us put ourselves into his shoes, and seeing these messages, Written By his current boss, for him, the Prime Minister, yes, this was probably typed out in the heat of the moment, yes, it is whatapps, yes, it is almost the kind of equivalent of a throwaway conversation, but ijust wonder where that leaves him psychologically, personally, professionally, trying to carry on in the job, go to a cabinet meeting, for instance, knowing that that is what the Prime Minister, at least in that moment, thought of him. Well, of course it is awkward when your boss is reported to be saying things like that, but seriously, if Boris Johnson had been planning to move Matt Hancock in a reshuffle, i think it is unlikely that he would do that anytime soon, because i do not think he would want to be seen to be reacting to What Cummings said, so the immediate impact may be the opposite of what mr cummings intended. And it has also given us a new classic in the genre of politicians being door stepped, which is the word we use when we chase after them when they are leaving their House Or Office or getting into their car. The particularjoy of this being that he was in his car and therefore your chances as a reporter of getting anything are pretty low, because the windows are up and he zooms by, but the windows were down and it is all. And it is also just hilarious. Were you hopeless, Mr Hancock . It is one of those ones, as a journalist, when you do those doorsteps, that all of the luck is on your side, because it is a hot day and the windows were down. Most the time, the car would have just zipped straight past. Do think that is a new high . I am just relieved, i had so many embarrassing doorsteps in my time as Health Secretary and Foreign Secretary and so many appalling gaffes, including getting the nationality of my wife wrong, that hopefully these will all be dim and distant memories, because people will be thinking about Matt Hancock for the last week. He has trumped you. Also, you are famous as a politician who jogs and has the cameras outside their house, do you think when Dominic Cummings went outjogging outside his house in front of the cameras on wednesday, he was actually taking the mickey out of Matt Hancock who likes to do a bit of a jog in front of the cameras . Do you think Dominic Cummings is that calculating, to embarrass people . He is definitely that calculating. Whether that was the motive or not, i dont know, but i think every single move that he does in these situations is choreographed. He was a special adviser, he was someone who was paid to think about how the media were going to react to different announcements and i think he is very good at it. Let us just remind ourselves of one of the things that you said to him, Dominic Cummings, in that hearing that your committee did a couple of weeks ago. Let us just remind ourselves. The Cabinet Secretary said to the Prime Minister in almost the first meeting when he came back, Prime Minister, the british system is not set up to deal with a secretary i of state who repeatedly lies in meetings. Those are very serious allegations, and they are said under parliamentary privilege and we have got Mr Hancock coming here in two weeks time to respond to those, but as Greg Clark said, we would be very grateful for any evidence that you have to back those assertions. That was a good few weeks ago, have you had any more evidence to your committee from Dominic Cummings . No, we did not. That is why i think Matt Hancocks session went a lot more smoothly, because he was able to say, look, the evidence that was promised did not materialise. The fascinating thing about these sessions, of course, the personal invective, the comments about this person being hopeless, this person lying and so on, but actually behind that, Dominic Cummings said some very important things about what went wrong in our initial handling of the pandemic and the fact that the scientific advice was wrong, the fact that it was not challenged, the reason it was not challenged, the fact that Test And Trace was set up so late, why Test And Trace did not prevent future lockdowns, these are actually the substance of what he said, so i hope that does not get too overshadowed by some of the salacious things we have been talking about in this podcast. Oh no, point taken, very subtly made, as ourformer chief diplomat, former Foreign Secretary, let us not forget, but you have just given us a little insight there into what your committee might end up concluding, well, we are hoping to publish before the summer recess. We are not having any more Evidence Sessions, we have got to write it and agreement between the two committees, but you are right, the purpose of our report is it is going to come out early, probably two years before the public enquiry report, so it will be the first opportunity for the government to look at independent recommendations and, you know, we could have another pandemic in that period, we do not want to wait two years before we start learning lessons, so our focus will be looking forward. Although it is of great interest to you guys, which Cabinet Ministers are underperforming and which are over performing, that is something that is true of any government, any time. What we want to look at is the structure of things that we need to do as a country, to make sure that we are safer when we get our next pandemic. Are we going to take Jeremy Hunts tips. I almost did ajim naughtie either. That would have made this a much listened to a podcast. Although i got the Words Hunt and hint mixed up there, not the other way around. Shall we takejeremy� S Hint and talk about the substance of covid now . The delay in england, the right call . It was the right call, but you know this was a much more difficult one then i think we have had earlier in the pandemic. You are paid to look at the numbers and i am there, in the select committee, to look at the numbers. I dont think the numbers really gave a Slam Dunk Answer as to what needs to happen, because yes, the Delta Variant is exploding, but only 1 of Nhs Hospital beds are occupied with covid patients and i think basically what the government was saying is, for the sake of four weeks, we can contain this risk when we dont really know how dangerous it is and i think most people probably agree with that cautious approach, but i think it was a genuinely difficult call. Are you hinting that perhaps they have been more cautious than they needed to be . I think they were erring on the side of caution, yes, and i think in earlier decisions, without pre empting our enquiry, i think they erred on the side of taking risks, and those proved to have been unwise decisions. I think we have to look at this as a failure of the state, because the root cause, i think so far and Dominic Cummings Evidence Sessions made this very clear, is that the wrong scientific advice was given to ministers, but in fairness, the ministers did not challenge that advice enough and this Well Oiled Machine, the british state, which we all thought was preparing for pandemics, i was responsible for some of those preparations and clearly they were not good enough, given what happened, that Well Oiled Machine failed us when we needed it to succeed. I think it goes beyond personalities and we have to really understand why it was that it took us so long to learn from the best in the world, like korea, taiwan, japan, singapore, australia, rather than being hung up on the sort of suppression, immunity, Mitigation Strategies that we stuck around with for too long. Jeremy, thank you very much and just before we let you go, give us a Target Date for your committees report coming out. Well, Target Dates, goodness me. I think the ambition is to do it before the House Of Commons breaks for summer recess, which would be the week of the 19th ofjuly. It will be Freedom Day for the country and Freedom Day for the committee when we have got this report off our chests. But it is an ambition. We cannot guarantee it. What you said was an elaborate version of that with an aimed for deadline. I can give you some jargon if you like. I could say, a reasonable worst Case Scenario is that it doesnt come out until september, but we are aiming forjuly. Thanks for talking to us, jeremy. See you again in due course. Cheers. Right. Now, were going to talk about Northern Ireland. And, chris, did you get that Press Release from the northern Ireland Office in your E Mail this morning, very pleased that Brandon Lewis, the northern Ireland Secretary, had stayed up very late the night before to broker a deal between the Dup And Sinn fein to get Paul Givan in as the new First Minister of the northern Ireland Executive, and Michelle 0neill from Sinn Fein back in as the deputy First Minister . This is after Arlene Foster got. But then its all sort of gone a bit wrong since then, since that triumphant E Mail. Yes, so, said E Mail was in my inbox, and as you say, it is that word, triumphant, isnt it . Because when you look at these E Mails that governments or parties churn out, there is all the verbiage, but then there is the tone. And the clear tone of that was triumphant. Weve done it, it might as well have said, in as many words. And yet, here we are at The End of the day, and it looks a bit shaky. Yeah. And there is a catch to this, because were recording this episode at tea time on thursday, and by the time youre listening or watching to it, the situation may have changed. But lets find out whats going on right now, and a bit of the background from our correspondent danjohnson, who is actually filling in as the Northern Ireland correspondent, and this is his first week first week, and political chaos crises already. So, whats going on . Well, its been a busy week, and there hasnt been a First Minister since monday, because Arlene Foster officially stepped down, and the two main parties here, Sinn Fein and the dup, couldnt agree on who should replace her all the terms under which her replacement would take over. So Paul Givan was the preferred candidate of the dup, but Sinn Fein refused to endorse him in the office until they got some reassurances on the irish language here in Northern Ireland, Protection And Promotion of that language was something that theyve been pushing for for a while, and it took the intervention of Brandon Lewis to bring about, very late Last Night, in the early hours of this morning, a deal between the parties that will see some progress now on the irish language, or if that isnt progress, he will intervene and put legislation through the parliament at westminster to make sure that Promotion And Protection is in place. Now, thats pleased the Sinn Fein party who were prepared to come here this morning and endorse Paul Givan in his confirmation as First Minister. But its really upset a lot of the politicians in the democratic unionist party who are not happy with the move that their leader, Edwin Poots, has made, the deal that he struck with the uk government. Yeah, so help us out with the personalities here. Youve got Edwin Poots who is the new dup leader, but hes not the First Minister, because that is Paul Givan. And then youve got the dup who arent very happy about what has worked its way through, and plenty of them are being very open and public about their unhappiness. Yes, there has been a lot of bitterness in the dup since Arlene Foster was overthrown, really, and forced to step down. Edwin poots, this is his 20th day on the job as leader, so hes very new in that office. He decided not to take up the job of First Minister as well, as Arlene Foster had done, but he wanted Paul Givan, a protege of his, to take that role instead. And that is what he has been trying to work out for the last few days, since Arlene Foster officially stepped down on monday. As i say, it all came down to this wrangling over the status, the protection of the irish language. Sinn fein saw a chance to get extra reassurances on that. They got those Last Night from the northern Ireland Secretary, Brandon Lewis. He put that triumphant statement out this morning which some people were saying this morning sounded like his Mo Mowlam moment, or something. Well, it hasnt worked out like that, because the division in the dup has only become even more apparent. There is a meeting of the party members and officials going on at the moment, potentially with a vote of no confidence in the new leader over the moves that he has made here. They were people going into that meeting saying, you cant be a leader if no ones following you. So Edwin Poots looks like hes managed to get his man in office here at stormont, but at what cost to his leadership . Does he have the confidence, the support of his own party now . Dan, thank you very much. If this is what you have got for your first week, this is what you have got for yourfirst week, I Cant this is what you have got for your first week, I Cant wait for your second. Cheers. Tough act to follow and of course this matters because youve got negotiations with the eu over the Northern Ireland protocol, which is meant to be bringing stability to Northern Ireland after brexit, but is bringing instability, and then youve got instability within Northern Ireland anyway, so instability on top of an unstable situation equals, guess what, even more instability. Yes, and an issue that matters hugely for people in Northern Ireland. But, as you say, then has ramifications for the rest of the uk and the eu as well. And its another one of those examples of Deja Vu for the brexit negotiations, isnt it . That we remember so well from all the millions of episodes of Pod Casts we did where there was no Northern Ireland assembly, no northern Ireland Executive in place then, and people so actually one of the reasons the issue got so heated and so complicated and so difficult to solve was the lack of representation in Northern Ireland. And if were heading for that again, because if the assembly collapses as a result of this. Ireland. And if were heading for that again, because if the assembly collapses as a result of this. Hence the triumphalism from the northern Ireland Secretary this morning, but then where are we now . Yes, so that massive phew has turned into something else. Absolutely. So, four years after the Manchester Arena Attack which killed 22 people, that huge, long running inquiry has produced its first report into the security around the event, and its identified some quite major failings. We can talk about them now with our correspondentjudith moritz. Hello, judith. Hello. Hi. Give us the Summary Version of what could have been done, potentially, to stop Salman Abedi Blowing Up his rucksack and killing those people at that Ariana Grande Concert . Summary version is well put, because it is a meaty document, this. This is the first report of three which the Arena Inquiry is going to publish, and this just deals with that question of the Security Failings that led to the fact that abedi could slip through the net, essentially. He got past the police, he got past private security to allow that attack to happen. And so Sirjohn Saunders who has been chairing the inquiry has looked at how those failings happen. He has pointed the finger in a really critical Report Today at british transport police, at the operators of the arena, smg, and at the subcontracted security firm showsec, who do security for them. They all bear some blame. Altogether, their failures, sirjohn is clear, he says with the failings which led to the security lapses, if those failings had been avoided, lives could have been saved. Its that bleak. And he points the finger corporately at those organisations, but hes also talked about the personal responsibility of some of the people who were working that night, in particular some of the stewards, who were teenagers, 18, 19 years old, who were working, who failed, he says. And also, some of the Police Officers who should have been patrolling the room where the bomb went off, and at the time of the explosion they werent there at all. They were at the Train Station next door. And he says theres no justification for that. So it is a catalogue of errors and failings and mistakes, and it makes miserable reading for the families who lost Loved Ones and those who survived the attack, and the other thing is that this report really is setting out the purpose of it is setting out proposals to make improvements for the future, recommendations, changes in the law to make sure that this kind of thing, if possible, never happens again, and if it was to happen again, that the impact shouldnt be so severe. Judith, you mentioned there the families of the relatives. Lets hearfrom Paul Hett, whose Son Martyn died in the attack, speaking after the report came out today. Today our heartbreak turns to anger. We entrusted the safety of our Loved Ones into organisations. And agencies who had a duty of care to protect them. This inquiry has rightly. Found that we were failed on every level. This Terrorist Atrocity could and should have been prevented, and 22 innocent people should not have lost their lives. Now, judith, hearing that is very moving, because it seems that for that particular family, this isnt bringing closure at all. Its actually making them more upset. Yes, it is really interesting hearing Paul Hett say that heartbreak turns to anger, that is a sentiment that i heard from lots of the families here. It has also given them purpose. Theyve been coming to court, many of them, day after day, to listen to the evidence, which is really difficult to take in. Some of the granular detail of what went wrong, if yove lost somebody directly in this, it is so painful, and yet they still come to court, theyre still listening to the evidence, and theyre saying to me, look, its because we are invested in this inquiry process. We dont want other families in future to have to go through what were going through. Judith, you mentioned that this was the first of three reports. Tell us a bit about the other two and when were going to see them. The second report will deal with a huge amount of material. That includes the way the Emergency Services responded to the attack, and we already know that there were multiple failings by all of the services. It will look at that and it will also look at what happened to each one of the 22 victims and whether any of them could have been saved. There are questions particularly about two of them, john atkinson, and about the youngest victim, saffie roussos, who was just eight years old, and whether they might have been saved with better first aid treatment. So it will look at all of that. The third report is going to look at what was known by the Security Services about the bomber, about his family, about their radicalisation, and about whether the attack could have been foreseen and prevented by those services. Some of the hearings relating to that section of evidence will be held in private. The families wont be given access because of national security. So, this has got a long and complicated distance to go, i would say, certainly to The End of this year, into next year potentially, and im expecting two more very seriously critical reports to follow. And, chris, i mean, forjournalists sitting through these inquiries and hearing quite harrowing evidence, its sometimes quite difficult as well, we should say remember that. And so we should say thank you to you for doing that for us, judith, thank you. Good to talk to you, thanks. And thats all for this edition of newscast. Thanks for watching, thanks for listening, thanks to everybody whos been on it, and thanks to you, chris, for being here in the studio, physically with me. But still two metres apart. It was a joy. Thank you for having me. Bye. Newscast, from the bbc. Hello there. Friday is set to be another day of Split Weather fortunes, with largely dry and often sunny weather across northern and western areas. Further south and east, well, the chance once again, of some thunderstorms or at least some torrential downpours of rain. Feeding up from the near continent, you can see this Weather System Herejust fringing into South Eastern areas, whereas this ridge of high pressure is going to be keeping things mainly dry settled across a part of scotland, Northern Ireland, North West england, wales, and the far south west, after a fairly cool, Fresh Start. There will be some spells of sunshine and just the odd shower. But down toward the South East, you can see more in the way of cloud and some sporadic outbreaks of rain. Now, dont take the detail on this chart too literally, its often hard to pin down the detail in these thundery scenarios, but there will be some heavy bursts of rain, perhaps as far as the west country, the west midlands, up to Parts Of Lincolnshire and east yorkshire. The greatest chance of seeing Thunder And Lightning is across parts of East Anglia and the far South East, where you will also notice the strength of a keen, north easterly breeze. So while it will still feel humid here, temperatures will be a good few degrees down on where they have been. Maybejust 16 there in norwich. 20 in the sunshine in plymouth, thats the expected high. But more generally, w� re looking at temperatures in the mid to high teens. Now, as we head through friday night, well see this wet weather clearing off into the north sea. Still some cloud affecting eastern areas, clearer spells further west and further north and quite a cool, Fresh Start to the weekend for most. A little bit fresher than it has been, even across the South East corner. On saturday, we find ourselves between weather systems, so that means, actually, a decent amount of dry weather. Quite a cloudy start for some, i think we should see some spells of sunshine, chance of one or two showers here and there, and more especially, creeping up from the south through the latter part of the afternoon. Temperatures not doing too badly in the strong june sunshine, maybe 23 degrees there in liverpool. Always a little Bit Cooler the further north you look across the uk. But for sunday, well, the Weather Picture is a lot more complex. Low Pressure Swinging in from the west, this frontal system driving its way northwards, what it means that is most places will see some outbreaks of rain from time to time throughout the day, could be some heavy, thundery downpours creeping in towards the south, and those temperatures ranging from 21 in london, 22 in norwich, tojust 12 degrees in aberdeen. Welcome to Bbc News im lewis vaughanjones. 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