Even worse, the bills will escalate out of control. The Chancellor’s job retention scheme already looks as if will cost £40 billion or £50 billion more than the Treasury first estimated (but, heck, who’s counting anymore, or at least not until it gets into ten digits). Already almost half the private sector workforce may well be ‘furloughed’, and that will only rise the longer this goes on. So will the cost of every other support scheme.
Right now, the government is being led by focus groups, which show strong support so far for its lockdown approach. True, people are understandably terrified of the virus, and are supporting the lockdown as way of suppressing it. And yet, it is also the job of the ministers, and the Prime Minister most of all, to lead opinion, and to shape it, and not just to follow what the polls are saying. And while the advice of the scientists has to be listened to, the government also needs to listen to what business is saying, and strike a compromise between the two.
In reality, a slow, gradual easing of the lockdown will kill off vast swathes of the economy – and if that happens, the victory, if it can even be described as such, will be a very hollow one.
