Battling the new apocalypse

摘要

When it comes to the future, senior figures in local government tend to be optimistic - even at the very worst of times. But the starting point for a conversation with the director of the Leadership Centre, Joe Simpson, about post-COVID uncertainty feels a little more bleak. 'We used to talk about the four horsemen of the apocalypse - war, famine, pestilence and death,' he begins. 'What we've got now is four massive challenges simultaneously. 'We've got the pandemic, and we don't know when were are going to get out of it...that has had a phenomenal effect on us. 'We've had massive, in parallel, digitalisation.' Amazon now employs 1.3 million people worldwide, he says - a huge empire that is buying up media and controlling large swathes of the internet while the shopping and delivery service it is best known for is just the tip of the iceberg. The effect of the Amazon expansion during lockdown on our places will only start to become apparent when we are out of the pandemic. Then there is the economy.