The strategy for a 12-week emergency
Yesterday the Prime Minister tried to give the country a pandemic timetable: within 12 weeks, we can turn the tide on the coronavirus (if we all do exactly as we have been asked). Boris Johnson was optimistic but when he was pressed for more details, it began to sound as if that date would mark the end of the beginning rather than the beginning of the end. Thus far, the Prime Minister says he has been led entirely by the science – but he is also a politician and he needs to give the public something to work towards, a light at the end of the tunnel.
Even so, three months is still a very long time. A long time to be stuck indoors, for children to be off school, the vulnerable to be isolated and public events shut down. For the economy, it will be ruinous.
The Prime Minister reiterated his message to business that “if you stand by your employees, we will stand by you”. State action has been historic and encouraging, but yesterday the Government received strong criticism from its own backbenches, from MPS who pointed out that businesses are laying off people in large numbers and that protection for the self-employed is negligible. Hence, today the Chancellor is expected to announce even more dramatic measures to support wages.
Rishi Sunak has to show that, while the economy is being put on hold, it is not going to be allowed to die – that the Government will effectively act as insurer to see employers and workers through this trial. It is being done on the continent already. For instance, Denmark is reimbursing companies for 75 per cent of the wages of workers who would otherwise be let go, and other nations are bolstering their existing social insurance schemes. Italy is giving around £470 to each self-employed person, although Mr Sunak might be more attracted by the idea of a tax rebate. The longer that radical action is put off, the stronger the call for a universal basic income will become, even though it would also go to wealthier Britons who do not really need it.
Mr Johnson said that he wants to avoid the mistake of the 2007-08 crisis, in which state money was felt to have bailed out the bankers rather than the workers and taxpayers, hugely damaging the reputation of capitalism itself. This time, the Prime Minister assured us, help will go directly to the workers. In which case Mr Sunak must today, once again, step up the fight, to give capitalism a chance to survive the next three months.