It is all very well Boris Johnson urging us all to shop till we drop to rescue the British economy.
Too many will have seen their household finances fall off a cliff.
For many it will be a struggle to put food on the table, let alone splash out at the post-lockdown sales.
The PM’s message after the biggest-ever crash wiped out a fifth of the economy was characteristically simple.
Britain will “bounce back”.
As long as we all do our bit – and go shopping.
Getting out of a crash that makes the Great Depression of the 1930s look like a minor blip just isn’t going to be that easy.
There needs to be a better plan. Any plan.
Boris hasn’t helped. The Government’s wrong-headed, dithering and confusing decision-making deepened the economic damage. It will make coming out of it harder.
Mr Johnson makes his first public outing since the lockdown next week. To a High Street. To show us the way.
He hopes to tap into the yearning of all of those trapped indoors for weeks.
But only just over a third of shoppers would feel safe, says the Office of National Statistics. A fifth say they’ll never visit a clothes shop again.
As the shops open tomorrow, the virus is still with us and the rules on social mixing are now so muddled it is impossible to know what is safe.
The burden should be shared more fairly.
If we really ARE all in it together, the PM should ensure the rich and companies such as Amazon pay their fair share of the taxes they craftily avoid.
