Opinion Matrix: The bleak future facing businesses
THE bleak future facing many of Britain’s business sectors – including the cinema industry – as they battle to recover from Covid-19 was the topic of choice in yesterday’s opinion columns.
The Guardian
Labour MP Ed Miliband criticised the “viability” threshold which, he said, ruled shutdown businesses out of government support.
“Tens of thousands of businesses and a million or more jobs are in parts of the economy that have been wholly or almost wholly shut down,” he wrote.
“Weddings, events, conferences, arts, clubs, indoor play, bowling alleys... Cinemas, facing a perfect storm of delayed film releases and reduced capacity, are the latest to join that list.
“The Government is essentially consigning thousands of businesses and whole swathes of our economy to the scrapheap.”
Turning to employment roles in such sectors, Mr Miliband added: “These are jobs and careers that were specifically chosen and loved... These are the very businesses and people the Government has always claimed to stand up for – those working hard and paying their taxes. Then there is the misnamed Job Support Scheme.
“To be clear, this is a million miles from the successful German Kurzarbeit scheme.
“It demands employers pay 55 per cent support for 33% of the hours, offers half the level of government support compared with the German scheme and, in fact, gives an incentive to employ one person full-time rather than two part-time.”
Mr Miliband argued it was crucial to remember we must all look after each other and that “our fates are bound together”.
He concluded: “We need to keep supporting businesses through this crisis and not impose artificial tests of viability.
“We need a job support scheme that works.
“We need a plan for a green recovery and re-skilling that meets the scale of this economic emergency.
“The decisions we take now will have a profound effect on businesses and our economy for years to come.
“It is essential that a coalition of forces, including businesses and workers right across the country, persuades the Government to take the right path.”
The Scotsman
Martyn Mclaughlin admitted to having a “heavy heart” at the “dire straits the cinema industry finds itself in”.
“It will require the distribution of an effective vaccine before the cinema industry can return to normal, but with the prospect of no meaningful revenue for several months, if not longer, it may be too late by then,” he wrote.
Cineastes, Mr Mclaughlin went on, “look set to be stuck at home”, where the “bewildering choice of films afforded by streaming service algorithms should soften the blow”.
“It doesn’t though, does it?” he
continued. “Even if you have a 4K television and a surround sound system with unrivalled technical specifications, it is impossible to weave the same illusion.”
Mr Mclaughlin concluded: “One of my last pre-lockdown visits was a blissful solo trip to the IMAX to watch Apollo 11.
“If I close my eyes, I can still see the vast emptiness of space, and hear the roar of the Saturn V rocket under my feet.
“I wish I had known then how much I appreciated being whisked off to another world.
“I suppose I can always turn on the washing machine and pretend.”
The Daily Telegraph
In its leader comment, the paper opted to focus on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s virtual party conference speech and, specifically, its pledge to turn Britain into a clean energy powerhouse, creating thousands of jobs in the process.
“For those whose bars and restaurants have been shut for good, whose artistic careers have been wrecked because theatres and concert halls are closed, or whose jobs working in cinemas have been lost, the promise of jam tomorrow offers little consolation for the misery now,” it said as it urged the PM to reconsider new restrictions which have been imposed on hospitality venues.
“Many pubs and restaurants have gone out of their way to make themselves ‘Covidsafe’, and the curfew is damaging firms that were already on the brink after the lockdown,” it went on.
“If Mr Johnson really wants to show he cares about them, he would scrap it, or at least promise a re-think, rather than risk being beaten in the Commons by a growing Tory rebellion.”