Last week, the ONS figures for April came in. They were, to put an inadequate word to the crisis, terrible. We now have the highest level of unemployment claimants for over 20 years, at a massive 2.1 million people. When you combine this with the staggering numbers of the government’s furlough scheme (7.5 million) and the number of public sector employees (5.4 million), it means that essentially half of the UK’s working population is being paid for by the taxpayer.
On top of this we have received the additional hammer blow of the borrowing figures for April. We now know that the UK has had to massively expand the scope of its borrowing. In that one month alone we borrowed £62 billion. To put this into perspective this was previously the rough estimated total for borrowing during 2020.
We had previously been on track to control the government budget and return to the era when a government surplus was the norm rather than an outlier. This no longer seems likely in the short-term. Our debt has ballooned to £1.88 trillion – almost 98 per cent of UK GDP.
We are unquestionably in the middle of a crisis. One that is economic as well as healthcare related. Perhaps if early warnings of an upcoming pandemic, likely originating from animals, had been heeded by the West, or if China had been forthcoming at the start, we could have mitigated the worst of both. However, this is by no means a certainty and our decision-makers should not waste our time by considering what could have been while we are still in the middle of the crisis.
Instead, the Government must focus on the best route out of the lockdown and how best to manage the risk of a second wave. Then, it must turn to the difficult process of ensuring that our stalled economy restarts as quickly and effectively as possible. Only once we have successfully achieved both of those objectives should we be turning our attentions to the mistakes that were made in the lead up to the Covid-19 pandemic.
We will need to continue to pull together as a nation, both at the community level, and at the political level. Now is not the time for point scoring nor political advantage. All sides should be focused on supporting the Government in these objectives.
Of course, this does not mean that opposition parties, and Conservatives, should not scrutinise government decisions or ask for clarity of government messaging – as both are extremely important. However, all sides must consider whether what they are doing is in the national interest or simply a cheap political stunt that holds no benefit for the British people.
Therefore, should we continue to discuss Dominic Cummings’s much disputed trip to his parents’ home in Durham during the lockdown? No. Has he broken lockdown rules? Probably. Even if he has not broken the letter of the law, as the Government insists, he has most certainly broken its spirit.
As a high ranking, high-profile member of the government structure he must be held to a higher standard and the Government should perhaps reconsider its position on the lack of any sanction. Moreover, this furore is getting the in the way of the important work that the Government is doing and undermines the continued importance of a consistent message on what the lockdown rules are.
I am hopeful that the lockdown will continue to be wound down and we can get on with the difficult process of rebooting the economy as well as tackling our spiralling public debt and current reliance on taxpayer spending.
It is good then that we will be leaving the strictures of the EU at the end of the year. This will give the Government the freedom of action that it so desperately needs to kickstart the economy. We must eschew the protectionist policies of the past and embrace our free-trading future.