At the beginning of a crisis, actions always trail behind events. In autumn 2007, as the first bank run for 150 years began, Gordon Brown refused to nationalise Northern Rock (fearing it an “Old Labour” remedy). By the following year he had taken the commanding heights of the banking system into public ownership.
In early March 2020, as the worst pandemic for a century began, Boris Johnson declared that it was “business as usual” and reacted with libertarian incredulity to calls for a lockdown. A few weeks later he was amassing emergency powers and ordering the UK’s “free-born people” to stay home.
Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month
Content from our partners
