Blat, the Soviet art of getting by, comes to Britain
Lessons in navigating a land of queues
After britain’s covid-19 shutdown, waiting times at driving-test centres rose to over six months. Where there are bottlenecks, there is potential for profit. Enterprising sorts created a lucrative secondary market: they built online bots to hoover up scarce test slots, and then sold them on to impatient candidates. The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency promised a crackdown, but several of these intermediaries still seem to be in business.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Britanskii blat”
Britain January 28th 2023
- Britain’s carmaking industry is increasingly under threat
- Britain is beginning to protect its 1970s leisure centres
- Rishi Sunak’s hapless government
- Britain has fewer hospital beds than almost any other rich country
- Illness is stopping Britons from coming back to work
- How to conduct a sex survey
- Blat, the Soviet art of getting by, comes to Britain
From the January 28th 2023 edition
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