Everybody had their income squeezed - I didn't see many salary increases across the private sector during the reign of the coalition apart from minimum wage increases so it wasn't only the public sector that got squeezed.

Not a chance for further austerity - we will carry a bigger deficit that is for sure and various levers will be pulled: fuel duty, pension allowance >20% will be scrapped, greater efforts on CT, dividends will be taxed at higher levels bigger increases in council tax etc.

What should be allowed to happen is a halt to the increase in minimum wage 6% this - similar next - must keep going even though it will hurt the government most.

What I think is he has got the mood of the nation right - the furlough, CBIL, VAT he has been creative in helping businesses survive and give workers some dignity during this crisis. You lot didn't like austerity when Osborne tried to balance the books so your option was borrow more money so what do you want?

One thing is obvious he is a very bright guy which is always a good starting point - intellectual horsepower is seldom beat by idealistic thinking.

Yeah, but first of all you need an emotive three word slogan.

I reckon that is why Stay Alert went down badly - only two words.

Only about 6 weeks for them to decide on whether to continue negotiating a trade deal with the EU. It doesn’t matter how bright you are if you’ve given yourself no good options.

Why pick on the poorest workers in the country?

What about the "never had it so goods" how about a freeze on the triple lock or maybe a cull on the free bus pass & T.V. licences, after all the elderly are the most affected by the virus, we're all in it together aren't we?

"the mood of the nation", since when has that EVER mattered ??

The point that you seem to have spectacularly missed from my previous post is, why was austerity so necessary following the WORLD banking crisis but, wont be neccessary following an even larger fiscal hole in the world ecconomy or, was it merely an excuse to shrink the size of the "state" and with it, hit the poorest sector of the country, including a pay freeze on those who are now worthy of praise and applause on a Thursday night.
Just imagine if their wages hadn't been squeezed so tight and their bursaries not removed, we may have been slightly better prepared for the current pandemic

You do hold him in very high regard, which is strange, given that so far his actions have been similar to a Euromillions winner, albeit on a much larger scale.

I believe that you are clever enough to know that the furlough scheme is just delaying the inevitable job losses that come from closing down the country's ecconomy for 4/5 months and that in reality, around half of those who are currently furloughed wont have a job to return to and that the cost of the scheme is probably similar to those people having been made redundant, without the actual redundancy payments.

Yes, borrowing in the short term to plug the immediate hole - they have absolutely no choice - the interesting aspect will be when things start to settle down.
Will the Tory government roll with a much, much higher level of borrowing than there was following the banking crisis and the cost of financing that debt or, will we return to a period of austerity.
The Furlough scheme does give some short term protection to millions of workers but, to use a favourite political phrase, this merely kicks the can down the road and IF the opening up of the ecconomy is to be slow and / or "bumpy", companies just wont want to hire new employees, they will keep their belts well and truly tight, just as with my own business and this is before we look at things like the high street, which looks in mortal danger.
You were talking about a swift recovery of the ecconomy but, it will be anything but, this is going to be a slow, slow return to where we were, which was a flat line already.

I disagree with you - I think governments around the world will live with much higher levels of borrowing - they have the perfect excuse. I agree it does kick it down the road and there will be 3-4m unemployed in the short term. Why am I more optimistic about is the concept of bad businesses going that drag any market down - usually through lunatic pricing - this will open up the market to the better well invested operators who can make a margin and invest capital in their firms. These businesses are already lean so they wont have a need to tighten quite the opposite.

Come on, you are missing the point here.
The current shutdown of the ecconomy isn't weeding out "bad businesses", who may in a "normal" recession disappear, leaving the "stronger" businesses to prosper.
Due to the "lock down" restrictions, many businesses have been completely prevented from trading.
Many well run, previously solvent businesses will disappear due to being prevented from opening their doors, many fashion outlets will be stuffed, due to not being able to sell spring/summer garments, which will be all but obsolete by the time the next opportunity to sell them comes around.
Even allowing for furloughing and rates relief, any business starved of income for 3 months plus, is going to struggle and just about every business, that isn't involved in either the food or medical sector will be fighting for their lives.
Expect "fire" sales aplenty and liquidations by the 1000, which will take out other "viable" businesses.

Again we must disagree - the good businesses will see this through in the main due to the furlough scheme. The businesses that have been teetering on the edge for years will go by the way side. It is no surprise that the likes of Café Rouge, Carluccios, Jamie Oliver and shops like Debenhams, Links, Bon Marche have gone - these aren't good businesses that just got unlucky these were poor businesses that should have long ago. I don't hear M&S, Next, Harvey Nichols, River Island crying - the landscape will change it would have changed anyway. There will be less bars & restaurants but what will be left will be well run businesses.

I think there are plenty of manufacturing businesses that are sound and whilst revenues are down they are doing OK, plenty of media businesses too, finance companies etc. This economy is far from dead.

I didn't say the ecconomy was dead, just the high street.
As for the fashion outlets that you mention, certainly Next are "crying", their on line sales are 30% down ?? and M & S are bleeding cash.
No idea about Harvey Nicholls but, they wouldn't put anything negative into the public domain.

Do you think the either Next or M&S will not be here at the end of this? My guess is their business model will adapt to the new environment.

The high street as we know will not exist - Covid 19 has just accelerated that transition. The high street in every in every town was a clone of each other as is every shopping centre - that is not sustainable - something had to give.

M&S profits peaked in about 1997. How they're still going I don't know. If it wasn't for their food stores I think they would have gone a decade ago. Their clothes and homeware stores are just a depressing jumble of tat.

Changing the subject, away from the recession, it seems that our ruling party have finally been called out on their endless lies and misleading the public over their testing targets:

It’s more than a week since statistical regulator the UK Statistics Authority wrote to Health Secretary Matt Hancock to ask for clarification of whether that target is for testing capacity, the number of tests administered, the number of tests completed or the number of people tested.

Mr Hancock is still awaiting the party spin doctor to tell him how to answer this one.
There certainly havent been anywhere near 100,000 tests per day at or since the end of April.
Yes, the numbers are massively increased but, actual tests carried out, not to mention completed tests and their results are a long, long way from 100,000 per day.
Worht noting that the PM doubled this target for the end of May, only 11 days away.

Maybe they will be counting envelopes that are ready to put the test in, before posting them out

It's not like the Johnson government to mis lead anyone so we should probably forgive him this one. After all, he's not been well