Five years ago this weekend, life as we knew it was suspended overnight. Though with hindsight it seems amazing that it took Britain so long to lock down in the face of a gathering pandemic, at the time the pace of events felt dizzyingly fast.
It took a still-young government time to realise its manifesto was toast; that it would be forced into decisions either it or the public hated, which would nonetheless beat the alternative. The new chancellor, Rishi Sunak, was visibly reluctant to rip up a budget whose ink was barely dry and instead spend billions paying people not to go to work. Yet ironically, it is furlough for which history may remember him most kindly.
