Just heard BBC Question Time, Theo Paphitis, in answer to a a question about whether the Governments early action (not) contributed to UK's economic position said supportingly that it was a situation that no government could have foreseen. And the Labour panellist agrees.
What?
People have been warning about a pandemic for years. We have ear and eyes open for security threats of a conventional nature but not for this?
I'm told that planning was made post SARS and that a review in 2018 forecast that we wouldn't have the PPE. Hollywood even made a film about it, in part to warn us.
Surely someone would have said, as soon as the first case hit Britain or before, pull up the bridge and shut this away? But no.
As someone on LBC said, if the drawbridge had gone up in January, only tourism and travel businesses would have needed support.