Coronavirus: Why it is easier to lock a country down than it is to get it out again

Asking people to take the risk, however small, of going back to work will be difficult, writes John Rentoul

Police officers in a patrol car move sunbathers in Greenwich Park, London (PA)

Rishi Sunak knew when he announced the furlough scheme that he was doing the easy bit. Telling people the government would pay most of their wages while the economy was paused was always likely to be popular with the recipients.

Now he has arrived at the stage where he has to start winding down the scheme and it is going to get difficult. At some point the opposition is going to start to criticise him for withdrawing support from people and “throwing them on the scrapheap” of unemployment. If he needs to spend unimaginable billions today to prevent lasting damage to the economy, why will he not need to spend similarly fantastic sums over the next few months as the country enters a deep recession?

The chancellor has encouraged people to believe that the normal laws of economics have been suspended – indeed, they have been and rightly so, but only temporarily. Borrowing money to pay people to do nothing seems counterintuitive, but it is the right thing to do to offset the shock of shutting down the economy. The best way to preserve jobs is to give companies a strong incentive to keep staff on, until the economy is switched on again.