Britain has adjusted to its new circumstances more slowly than most continental countries
few weeks politics has retreated to its core function: protecting the tribe from death and destruction. The government has adopted the slogan “Save lives” along with “Protect the” and “Stay home”. The army is on standby. In the coming weeks thousands of people will die before their time; those who survive may confront a 1930s-style depression.
Covid-19 is changing the way Britain governs itself in broader ways, too. Two kinds of politics that have dominated the country for the past decade have vanished. The first is the politics of revolution. Britain has been turned upside down by the successful campaign, driven by activists such as Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s chief aide, to wrench Britain away from Europe.
The abrupt change of political direction has produced a bad case of whiplash, with Britain adjusting to these new circumstances more slowly than most continental countries, and old habits surviving, discordantly, into the new era. Politics suddenly requires a different sort of person—hence the disappearance of Mr Cummings and the appearance by Mr Johnson’s side of medical and scientific experts.
If Mr Johnson is to come out of this well, he will need to make further changes. There is growing support for creating a national government—a veritable “covid-coalition”—modelled on Winston Churchill’s national government during the second world war, making Sir Keir Starmer deputy prime minister if he wins the Labour leadership as expected and drawing on talenteds from across the political spectrum.
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