Bill will be vast... but we’re in this together

ANOTHER day, another colossal bailout by Rishi Sunak.

After stepping into save corona virus stricken businesses, and prevent a tsunami of job losses, the Chancellor turned his attention to the self-employed. He had come under bombardment, including from Tory MPs, for offering negligible protection to the five million who work for themselves – from cleaners to computer programmers.

Why the delay? Devising a scheme for a vastly diverse workforce that wasn’t a fraudsters’ charter was devilishly complex.

The lifeboat means the state will pay the self-employed up to £2,500 a month to help them through. The cost is estimated at an eye-watering £3billion a month.

The sting in the tail? They will lose generous tax breaks when the Government begins to right the economic ship.

The emergency sums dished out to help companies and workers have been mindboggling. The 2008 financial crash bailout is by comparison loose change.

Not long ago, Boris Johnson was derided (pathetically) as a far-Right autocrat who’d gleefully roll back the state. Today, his spree would make Jeremy Corbyn wince.

Of course, the Mail accepts he had no option. Hard-working Britons have been dragged to the edge of disaster.

Yet this paper believes fiscal prudence is a virtue. The size of the debt is terrifying.

Mr Sunak seems reassuringly alive to that. ‘We must all pay equally in future,’ he admitted. That could be tax rises or spending cuts – or both.

But one thing is clear: Like fighting coronavirus, we will all be in it together.