Coronavirus diary, Friday 5 March 2021

Money, money...

Money, money. All the talk is about money after the chancellor told us how much we would have to find to pay for the wild, forced extravagance of the year - £355 billion.

He talked in billions, of coronavirus costing £355 billion in twelve months; we are still working out in pounds what we will have to pay.The sums are conflicting, creating gloom or euphoria.

For the pessimists, there will be, even according to Mr Sunak, decades dogged by debt. For those who look on the bright side, things could be much worse.And for the lucky ones, there is the prospect of new opportunities and new wealth.

It all depends on how you view the figures, do your sums.

The Times piled on the good news with the headline, ‘Euphoria as Britons can’t wait to spend lockdown cash’.

Another story told us that the vaccine success would ‘put a rocket under the economy’- in 2022. Convenient as some of the chancellor’s demands start in 2023.

The highly responsible Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that households will spend a quarter of the £180 billion they saved in lockdown splashing out on new cars, TVs and furniture to ‘treat themselves’.

Turn the page on the bonanza story and you uncover some not so good news.

One million more people will start paying income tax, millions more will pay more. 

The scale of the country’s debt is historic - the worst ever apart from wartime.

One redeeming feature is that, boiled down to understandable figures, the cost to each seems manageable.  

The richest household will pay £826 a year, less than one bottle of fizz a week

It will not be all champagne or beer and skittles; millions, short of money and prospects, will find life hard. Those who have lost their jobs and can’t find work, young people whose education has been blighted, families in deprived areas who still need the food banks.

And the elderly, especially those in care homes. I am fortunate in being able to pay my way but I have not saved a penny this past year.

It does not worry me. I will be happy to see the world right again, people doing what they want to and spending their money as they wish.

Mr Sunak has certainly made us think of the future. It will be what we make of it.