Has Britain become hooked on lockdown?

LIKE the lotus eaters of Greek legend, the nation appears to have slipped into a narcotic trance of happy idleness. Our poll today suggests millions have become hooked on lockdown – and being paid by the state for doing nothing.

People feel generally fatter, better off and closer to their families. They are revelling in this extended summer furlough and are in no hurry to get back to the wheel, especially those in the public sector who are on full salary.

They neither want to go to work themselves in the near future, nor do they want to send their children to school. Only one in four parents of primary children would allow them back on June 1 – even though they are at little or no risk from Covid infection.

Judging by the huge crowds crushing into every beauty spot from Edinburgh to the Sussex coast, safety doesn’t seem to be the main motivation. The truth is most people are having a nice time, and someone else is footing the bill. For now.

But the idea this reverie can go on indefinitely is a delusion. The longer so much of the British workforce remains idle, the heavier the price we will ultimately have to pay.

In order to support furlough, business grants and the rest of his support package, Chancellor Rishi Sunak was forced to borrow £62.1billion in April alone – £20billion more than the whole of last year. This is not free money. At some stage it will have to be repaid, through higher taxes, spending cuts or a spurt in economic growth.

But British industry is reeling so badly from the effects of lockdown that growth is highly likely to be stunted and mass redundancies look inevitable. They have already begun in the retail, travel and leisure sectors and are likely to accelerate across the board as soon as furlough comes to an end.

Most forecasters say there is a glimmer of light in the Covid gloom. If people get back to work soon, earning their own money, helping to rebuild the public finances and breathing new life into ailing business, recovery could be relatively quick.

If not, we are headed for the poorhouse. And worst affected will be the young. Trying to start a career or secure an apprenticeship in the depths of recession would be a truly daunting task.

In the Homeric tale of the lotus eaters, Odysseus’s crew became so addicted to the intoxicating fruit that they lost all interest in duty. He eventually had to drag them back to the ship and chain them to their work stations.

Boris Johnson may not need to be quite so brutal. But somehow he must get the workers of Britain back on board. Otherwise the economy could soon be holed below the waterline.