UK PM vows 'Rooseveltian' response to virus crisis

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said yesterday the coronavirus crisis needed the type of massive economic response US president Franklin D Roosevelt mobilized to deal with the Great Depression.

Johnson told The Times newspaper’s new radio station that Britain was heading for “bumpy times” as it struggles through its biggest economic contraction on record.

He intends to unveil a spending program in a speech today his office has simply dubbed “build, build, build.”

“I think this is the moment for a Rooseveltian approach to the UK, really really moving forward,” he said. “I really think the investment will pay off.”

Roosevelt launched the New Deal program in the 1930s that created a comprehensive social care system whose legacy lives on to this day. The first part of Johnson’s initiative earmarks 1 billion pounds (US$1.2 billion) for school repairs.

The interview comes a week before the full reopening of restaurants, pubs and other parts of the hospitality, tourism and cultural sectors in England for the first time since March 20.