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The figure could not be more cataclysmic. Only 4,321 new cars left the showrooms and hit the roads of Britain in April, the lowest number since a shaken and impoverished Britain emerged from the fog of World War II in 1946.
There can be no better illustration of Britain’s calamitous collapse in production and wealth since the shutdown began on March 23 than the 97.3 percent drop in engine registrations last month.
To put it in perspective, that’s 156,743 less than the same period last year. The magnitude of the damage that is being done to the economic fabric of the nation, the risks for all companies and people employed in the country, are disproportionate to anything we have seen before, since the Government seeks to combat Covid-19 and protect lives.
With UK blockade measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus, the country’s economy is taking a major hit. Getting those under 45 back to work would ‘start’ the engines
To damage
As a financial writer, I have reported on Britain’s humiliating quest for an International Monetary Fund bailout in 1976, in the stock market crash of 1987, the UK’s expulsion from the European Monetary System (forerunner of the euro) in 1992 and The 2008-09 financial crisis.
I can honestly say we have never had it so bad.
Despite the valiant effort of our young and inexperienced Chancellor Rishi Sunak to keep the economy alive with an enormously costly package of measures, the nation is headed for a depression, rising insolvencies and unemployment levels that have hardly ever been seen in our lives. .
ONS figures released this week show that as of April 24, only 322 people under the age of 45 had died of coronavirus in the UK.
Not only are we condemning a generation of young people to long-term unemployment, we are also weighing down the country with levels of debt that will take decades to pay off and could even be delayed in the 21st century. (Remember, debts incurred as a result of World War II were finally paid by Gordon Brown in 2006.)
The destruction of Britain’s vibrant, creative, and entrepreneurial economy as the government hesitates about the best way to regain the nation’s trade is agonizing to see.
And unless something is done about it, it will inflict untold long-term damage. Of course, no one should underestimate the tragedy and personal sense of loss stemming from the tens of thousands of deaths caused by Covid-19.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke of revitalizing the economy with a return to work, though the government follows the pattern as the country waits
Nor can we minimize the immense suffering of those who have suffered severe symptoms. But all possible solutions that can bring our dying economy back to life should surely be examined. And one possibility is to get people who are less at risk for the disease, younger members of the population, back to work.
There is no escaping the fact that the vast majority of citizens who have perished from this plague are those over the age of 70 and people with underlying health problems.
As a reasonably fit 70-year-old, I am not happy to be incarcerated in a confinement, but at least I am satisfied that the Government wants me to continue to be protected from illness in my own home.
However, what I do not understand is why we cannot, for example, remove children under 45 from such repressive measures, and send them to the workplace to ‘start’ the UK’s engines, in the words of Boris Johnson. It is true that the pandemic has cut short the lives of brilliant and devoted young people, many of them in the NHS and the care sector.
Each of their deaths is a tragedy. But the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics show that, as of April 24, only 332 people under the age of 45 died from Covid-19 out of a total of 27,356 deaths.
Surely, with frequent testing, with monitoring of tracking apps, sensitive social distancing, wearing of masks, and thorough hygiene and sanitation, should it be possible to get this group back to work safely?
Clearly, it would require the reopening of schools, particularly for younger students, as many of the men and women in this group will be parents and will no longer be able to provide homeschooling.
I accept that in our great democracy, the idea of social engineering, ordering a group of employees to return to the workplace while leaving a group of older people at home, may seem unacceptable.
However, the sad reality is that the costs to all citizens of keeping the economy closed are totally unsustainable. A forecaster of the city, the Center for Business and Economic Research, which was one of the few that predicted the economic impact of the coronavirus after it hit China, warned that more than a quarter of a million small businesses will not be able to survive if the lock would remain in place for another four weeks.
And regardless of all government support schemes, his research suggests that the staggering 1.1 million companies would collapse if he stayed in place for three months.
Tragedy
Apart from anything else, the economic consequences of the blockade are creating a state dependency among the population that is completely unsustainable.
Within a few weeks, the UK went from being a nation with full employment and one of the lowest unemployment rates in the advanced world, with just 3.7 percent of the workforce unemployed, to one where more than 50 percent of the population: through permits, subsidies, pensions and benefits – they are on the public payroll.
Some 800,000 employees have been suspended under the Employment Retention Scheme, guaranteeing them an income of up to £ 2,500 per month.
Despite the valiant effort of our young and inexperienced chancellor Rishi Sunak to keep the economy alive, the nation is heading for a depression, with rising unemployment.
The initiative, operated by HMRC, has cost £ 8bn so far and the chancellor, who has been pushing for it to be closed soon, has made it clear that it cannot continue. The government’s official expenditure control agency, the Office of Budgetary Responsibility, warns that under current terms the plan will cost the Treasury £ 39 billion.
If it extends beyond the end of June, as many experts argue, the consequences will be even more frightening. There are already worrying signs that the financial markets are nervous about the number of loans the government is exposed to.
Last week, it emerged that a March sale of £ 3.25 billion in gold-rimmed government bonds or stocks, normally regarded as a solid investment and oversubscribed with buyers, nearly failed due to lack of appetite from buyers. investors. The Treasury was only saved from embarrassment when the Bank of England stepped in to make up for the deficit.
Serious
To be fair, the government is making an effort. The launch this week of the 100% guaranteed “payback” loan scheme quickly available to smaller companies, the backbone of the economy, provided a filip to that sector.
But even so, the concern must be that the impact of the blockade is so severe that this plan will be too little and too late. Boris Johnson, understandably cautious perhaps after his own brush with death, tends to go slow.
The Government also faces intransigence from unions demanding not to return to work until factories, offices and warehouses have been transformed to their satisfaction with regard to security.
No one wants to see a second or third peak of this crisis. But the truth is that we live on borrowed time and money. If Britain wants to have the resources to run the NHS, provide decent social care, launch our schools and universities, and maintain the kingdom’s defense and security, then the economy must be resurrected, and quickly.
And there could be no better vanguard to rescue us from the economic cliff than a workforce of under 45 years.
