Ending furlough may break the cross-party consensus in dealing with the coronavirus crisis

It’s only a matter of time before Labour calls for higher public spending to support jobs, writes John Rentoul

Rishi Sunak is preparing to announce ‘creative and imaginative schemes’ to replace furlough

Labour’s response to Rishi Sunak’s statement on Thursday will be an important test of Keir Starmer’s policy, so far, of supporting the government’s response to the coronavirus crisis – or, at least, of supporting the policies while criticising their execution. 

Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, will have to decide whether to break with the bipartisan approach that has just about held, even though she and Starmer have both been highly critical of the detail. 

On Wednesday, the Labour leader said, “We support those measures,” when the prime minister announced early closing for pubs and restaurants. He went on to be rude about the government’s failure to listen to warnings, and its failure to act quickly enough to fix the testing system, but his essential criticism has been, all along, that the prime minister is trying to do the right thing; he is just not very good at it.