With no long-term radical plan for jobs, Britain will go back to the future, with soaring mass unemployment scarring the 2020s just as it did the 1980s.
Record dole queue rises of nearly 900,000 to 2.1million in a single month would be a small taste of worse horrors to come when another 10 million employees and self-employed are on lifelines thrown by the Government.
End the Job Retention Scheme in October before the economy recovers strongly and Chancellor Rishi Sunak would add to the rapidly rising total claiming Universal Credit.
TUC analysis points to the way forward being public investment, of the kind that powered the economy to 3.3% average annual growth from 1947 to 1957 – compared to just 1.9% during a decade of Tory austerity to 2019.
If we are to be in this crisis all together, that means fighting for everyone to work instead of doing what Margaret Thatcher did when she dumped a generation on the scrapheap.
Restart ops
With so many people waiting for a transplant, today’s implementation of Max and Keira’s Law emphasises why we urgently need transplant operations to resume.
The gift of life is precious and delays are agonising for all those on the register who are in dire need of a kidney, heart or liver.
Suspending transplants when Covid-19 began spreading was sensible but NHS medics are eager to restart them as soon as it’s safe.
The young people we highlight today are the reasons all of us must hope this happens.
Crossing a line
In the US constitution the 25th Amendment allows an incapcitated President “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” to be replaced.
Donald Trump taking an anti-malarial drug with no proven protection against coronavirus – and which experts warn could be dangerous to health – must cross that line.
At least he isn’t drinking the disinfectant he also claimed would combat the disease.
