UCL Political Science Events

POLICY AND PRACTICE - Wake Up: How the Pandemic exposed the Weakness of the West

Episode Summary

John Micklethwait is editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, and Adrian Wooldridge is political editor of the Economist, and author of their Bagehot column. In their latest book they analyse the disastrous failure of many western countries to control the Coronavirus, and what it exposes about the weaknesses of their systems of government. It is a wake up call to learn from the more successful responses of countries like Singapore or South Korea. What are the lessons in better government the west can now learn from the east? To discuss the UK’s capacity to learn such lessons, and the likelihood of its doing so, they are joined by Philip Rycroft CB, former Head of the UK Governance Group in the Cabinet Office, Permanent Secretary in DExEU, and now Visiting Professor at Edinburgh University.