Whatever the question, the answer is Germany

“WHY THE Germans do it better”—the title of a new book by John Kampfner, a respected journalist—speaks volumes about the current state of the British psyche. The government is replacing Public Health England, the body that was supposed to stop Britons from dying of covid-19, with a new outfit modelled on the Robert Koch Institute, the body at the centre of Germany’s public-health system. James Kirkup, head of the centrist Social Market Foundation, says his aim is to “make Britain more like Germany”. Other thinkers are less explicit, but pore over the details of Germany’s technical-education system or social-insurance market.

That Britain should turn to Germany for ideas is not surprising given the long, binding ties between the two states. Britain imported its royal family from Hanover in 1714 and German-born Prince Albert did as much as his wife to shape Victorian England. The idea of the welfare state came from Bismarck. The post-war German constitution was mostly the work of the British and Americans.