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World

Why Covid means the big state is back

15 October 2021

9:31 AM

15 October 2021

9:31 AM

History suggests that when the state expands in a crisis, it doesn’t go back to its pre-crisis level once the emergency is over. After the first world war, the Lloyd George government extended unemployment insurance to most of the workforce, fixed wages for farm workers and introduced rent controls. The second world war led to Attlee’s nationalisations, along with the creation of the NHS and the modern welfare state. In

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