I posted this one year ago on 13th March 2020.
On the anniversary of COVID being recognised as a pandemic I’m re-posting it.
Michael Rosen tweeted at the time (13th March 2020):
Whatever one thinks of Boris Johnson’s statements on the coronavirus they are notable for how they differ from more or less every other European country. One senses a perspective of Podsnappery (a character in Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend) who would dismiss ‘Other Countries’ and being ‘Not English!’
Mr Podsnap’s world was not a very large world, morally; no, nor even geographically: seeing that although his business was sustained upon commerce with other countries, he considered other countries, with that important reservation, a mistake, and of their manners and customs would conclusively observe, ‘Not English!’
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