The first draft of history suggests that Britain's response to the pandemic has not been a glorious success.

And whose fault is that?

The Prime Minister said who's in charge of this plan?

The Cabinet Secretary replied,

you are Prime Minister.

After that, it became fairly apparent that those people around the Prime Minister not only had knives out, but they were prepared to sort of wield those knives in public.

For some years, political people now at the top of government have thought the British state is a bit rubbish.

Now with the recent sacking of the country's top civil servant,

they seem to have decided that this is the time to turn a crisis into an opportunity.

Dominic Cummings is the ideas man.

They realized that Britain was going to be changed forever by the pandemic and that as well as

downsides there were upsides they were going to use coronavirus to fulfill their

aim of rebuilding the state. You're listening to stories of our times from the Times and the Sunday Times.

I'm David Aronovich.

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Avanti west coast feel good travel. In late February, people in Whitehall and Westminster realise that they might have the mother of crises on their hands. Four more cases of coronavirus have been reported in England,

bringing the total number in the UK to 8.

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