Great conversation pushed right to the end of @BBCr4today involving Ken Clarke and @NEF fellow @AnnPettifor on Sunak’s budget teasing out the problem of when demand will return to the U.K. economy and what for. There are three problems

1. People are rightly concerned about infection and so many are in self-imposed semi-lockdown. It doesn’t matter what economic levers you pull, some of us probably just won’t go out and spend.

2. If and when we do, the period of lockdown and some of the habits we’ve got into - online working, more entrenched digital consumption and possibly (hopefully) even a focus on caring - will probably have a significant structural impact on the economy.

3. 1 and 2 and the threat to many people’s jobs will erode confidence.

So government needs to invest in welfare, because that’s an inevitable necessity, think ambitiously about training and transition from declining sectors to those that are going to grow and nail this damned virus as a second wave will turn disaster into catastrophe