🥳 The Northern Agenda turns two! Is the North still a priority for the government? 💉 How Liverpool is playing a part in developing vaccines

The bunting is out, the candles on the cake are lit, and the party poppers are at the ready: the Northern Agenda is celebrating its second birthday! And of course the best person to celebrate the occasion with is the person who was there from the beginning - and still keeps the newsletter and podcast strong - two years later: Northern Agenda editor Rob Parsons. Rob speaks to producer Dan McLaughlin about the past two years in Northern politics - and whether levelling up is still a priority for Rishi Sunak and the government. *** And it wasn't that long ago that the big story on all of our minds was vaccines: who's making them, who's getting them, do they work and how often we need them? But despite the worst of the pandemic now being thankfully in the rear view mirror, in large part thanks to the incredible roll-out of coronavirus vaccines across the country, the need to protect people from vaccine-preventable diseases. And in fact a major issue concerning health professionals is the host of other diseases that vaccines can help prevent and the fact that for many of these we're a long way behind where we should be, with millions of children missing out on vaccines during the pandemic. It's an issue medics are hoping to raise as this week is the World Health Organisation's World Immunization Week. But actually there's lots of fantastic work going on in our region on just this subject which could have a major impact on global health. So let's find out more about it Dr Marie O'Brien, co-founder of University of Liverpool spinout company called ReNewVax *** The Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. It is presented by Rob Parsons, and produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin. You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices