Chancellor’s faith the young are our future

THIS weekend marked a year since Rishi Sunak became Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer and was suddenly propelled as a major political figure into the national consciousness.

The 144th man to occupy the second most important great office of state has so far had one of the most spectacular terms since the post was first held by Eustace of Fauconberg, the Bishop of London, in 1221.

Faced with an unprecedented world pandemic and the need to provide massive financial support for businesses and jobs around the country, Mr Sunak will go down in history as one of our great chancellors.

But while his actions are very important it is his style, optimism and can-do positivity which have made him stand out as a possible future prime minister.

This is certainly the case with his words for Generation Lockdown in this newspaper today.

He is right to acknowledge the hardships brought to children, teenagers and young adults. But his message that they do not lose hope is also important.

It is good, too, to see that he believes Generation Lockdown will become Generation Kickstart for this country’s recovery.

He is right to place our future in the hands of the young.

But this means that he and the Government must come good on their pledges to provide the financial, education and mental and physical health support which will be needed to enable them to realise that potential.

We must heed the warnings of psychologist Professor Ellen Townsend today that lockdown is in danger of being “an unethical experiment” on the young and is already showing harm to Generation Lockdown.

In this light, many will support the Covid Recovery Group of Tory MPS who are now insisting that schools should be reopened by March 8 and that general restrictions are lifted on the back of the successful vaccine rollout by May.