Boris Johnson seeks a state fit for crisis
Efficiency gives way to resilience, and a new age of stockpiling, drills and imagining the worst
THE BRITISH government thought its preparations for a pandemic to be among the best in the world. In 2016, 950 officials drilled for an outbreak of “swan flu”, a hypothetical illness which killed 400,000 people. It gave ministers some useful pointers on enlisting retired doctors and drafting emergency legislation.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Defending the realm”
Britain June 5th 2021
- Boris Johnson seeks a state fit for crisis
- The fight to define the great British garden
- Rishi Sunak is worried about rising interest rates. He should relax
- MPs are returning to Parliament in a rebellious mood
- England’s school catch-up tsar resigns in protest
- London is starting to build more council homes
- Boris Johnson’s government wants more patriotic cultural institutions
- A parallel society is developing in parts of Muslim Britain
From the June 5th 2021 edition
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