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Features

Britain is in danger of repeating its post-war mistakes

What we can learn from Britain’s rationing mistakes

17 April 2021

9:00 AM

17 April 2021

9:00 AM

In search of wisdom about how an officious government reluctantly relaxes its grip after an emergency, I stumbled on a 1948 newsreel clip of Harold Wilson when he was president of the Board of Trade. It’s a glimpse of long-forgotten and brain-boggling complexity in the rationing system. ‘We have taken some clothing off the ration altogether,’ he boasts, posing as a munificent liberator.

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