One important point re the ‘austerity is back’ narrative - it isn’t. The plan in this @Telegraph leak isn’t to make cuts to pay for the £300 billion spending hit - it’s to lump that (or most of it) on to the national debt but then try to keep it flattish in subsequent years.

Eg it’s striking that the specific options mentioned focus on one or two chunky tax rises (pensions tax relief, maybe a VAT hike?) rather than massive spending cuts a la 2008 (though obviously having not read full document I’m relying on Telegraph write-up).

Basically the tone - again, as reported by the Telegraph - isn’t ‘we have to pay for every penny of this now’ but ‘we have to pay for just enough of it to keep the markets happy’

(And again, can I say congratulations to our awesome @CPSThinkTank research team for getting their estimates of the coronavirus cost pretty much bang on, once you add yesterday’s furlough extension... https://www.cps.org.uk/research/costs-of-coronavirus)