Boris Johnson needs an Australian-style Covid plan

In a typical year, Australia makes as many ripples in British public life as you would expect from a rich, war-free country of 25m people at the other end of the world, which is to say not many. As a transplanted antipodean in London, this year has not felt typical. It began with news from Prime Minister Boris Johnson that it did not matter if Britain failed to get the EU trade deal it wanted by the end of the year because it could always have what he called an arrangement “like Australia’s”. This idea of an Australian-style trade deal took off like a dingo strapped to a Saturn V rocket. There were only four days in the entire month of October when the term did not appear somewhere in the British media, news databases show. That is even more astonishing considering Australia does not actually have a comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU. And it was just the start of it.