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There has been much coverage of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s estimate that we’re midway through the worst economic downturn in a century. But very little attention has been given to what the same forecast goes on to envisage: the strongest recovery for three centuries, with unemployment falling by 5,500 a day. And the economic damage being repaired in full, with the economy surging by 17 per cent next year.
Might this be so? The Bank of England thinks not: its prediction is of longer-lasting economic and social damage. The problem, it says, will be fear. Ministers agree. Some worry about No. 10’s messaging: that the language used to enforce the lockdown is so unequivocal, so forceful, that it will be hard to soften. ‘Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives’ is difficult to reconcile with a plea to go to work. The task will be to replace fear with hope. Boris Johnson is better suited to this role than any of his recent predecessors: his inclination has always been to favour trust and boldness. The question is whether he trusts his own instincts now.
If he seeks to pay off the £200 billion costs of the lockdown by growing the economy, rather than another decade of austerity, a new strategy will be needed. People will need to be persuaded, not just cajoled, to rejoin the economy and society. This will mean learning to live with Covid-19. It’s unlikely that we will be able to rid ourselves of it entirely. More probably it will, like swine flu, join the familiar viruses swirling around the country and be regarded as a grim but manageable risk.
But how to make the transition? One next step should be making the lockdown voluntary, not mandatory. People can be asked — not ordered — to be careful. To keep their distance, not take undue risks. Return to work, where it’s safe to do so. Send young children back to school. Sweden has tried this approach and found a strong public response. Travel to Easter holiday hotspots was down 94 per cent; city streets, even now, are almost deserted. Sweden’s logic is that economic repair can happen more quickly if the pandemic is controlled by public consensus, with liberties protected.
So many of the great decisions in British political history come back to one crucial question: how much trust should the government place in the public? This magazine’s great battles — over parliamentary reform, free trade and economic liberalisation — have been fought by advocating trust in individuals and communities. That case is now stronger than ever. Lockdown has shown citizens reacting swiftly and responsibly to the crisis, not only strengthening but also building links within their communities.
After the devastation of the first world war, The Spectator argued that the social and economic outlook for Britain would be overwhelmingly depressing ‘if we were not a nation who have been proved over and over again to have the power of resurrection’. The same is true now. It could be that we are past the worst of this pandemic. We should not lose too much time before the job of repair and renewal begins.
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