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What if the policy response to Covid-19 doesn’t protect society but shatters it? Rishi Sunak’s radical and immense pledges to try to secure a viable post-Covid-19 economy by directly subsidising the great majority of the cost of temporarily redundant staff with the aim of keeping them from unemployment and keeping the businesses from bankruptcy was extraordinary. For one thing, probably the biggest single spending pledge by any British government since the 1940s was made not to parliament but in a…

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The economic damage from Covid-19 will likely be worse than the 2008 Financial Crisis This is Year Zero. We are at the cusp of the Before and the After. Covid-19, and the policy responses to it, are changing the world in a way that will affect it for decades and to put it bluntly, it doesn’t look good. Economies are delicate things. Analysts and commentators get excited about changes in growth figures or unemployment rates of 0.1% – one part…

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Many are talking to loved ones more than usual Over a third of Brits (36%) say they have spoken to their loved ones more than usual over the course of the last two weeks https://t.co/Yx3iWTHlDO pic.twitter.com/Ogf9m11ptB — YouGov (@YouGov) March 20, 2020 Nearly half of Brits (48%) now say they are scared they will contract the coronavirus – up from 38% last week https://t.co/fdJc9HSiYr #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/uTpkO8XOzr — YouGov (@YouGov) March 20, 2020 Mike Smithson

Looking at the the huge economic consequences So it begins. The emails announcing that this or that restaurant is to close its doors, temporarily they hope, and regretfully, as they let go treasured and valuable staff. A few offer takeaways, in the hope that a diminished service and reduced costs will keep the place alive until better times come. Other venues – museums, for instance – emphasise their digital offering. Yet others hope to keep alive online. But slowly Britain’s…

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