Sunak opts to suck it and see

The OBR’s horrid forecasts of an output implosion and soaring unemployment will do nothing to quell Tory resistance to tougher Covid tiers.

The wind of Biden’s change is blowing through Johnson’s Government

America’s result is having knock-on effects in Downing Street: see yesterday’s green speech and today’s defence news.

Ryan Bourne: If you want to feed hungry children, don’t target food poverty. Aim to reduce poverty as a whole.

Together with tax cuts and less regulation, higher or more extensive benefits look like better support for hungry children than vouchers.

Rachel Wolf: Net Zero risks upending our lives and livelihoods. Here’s why carbon pricing gives it a better chance of working.

It doesn’t make grand predictions about what will work or what we should do. It just prices in the ‘bad’ – in this case, emissions.

David Gauke: We’re urged to return to the office – but Ministers must face the fact that the world of work is changing.

Plus: On Last Night of the Proms, I get in touch with my inner Farage. And: On Brexit, it’s crunch time as the end of transition approaches.

Nicky Morgan: Ministers must act swiftly to avoid a disaster – bailiffs abusing vulnerable people over council tax arrears

Aggressive and intimidating enforcement plagued our system long before Covid: now is not the time to cross our fingers and hope that this might change.

Andrew Bowie: Evidence today that Ministers won’t negotiate trade deals that expose British farmers to unfair competition

I, for one, see this new Commission as further evidence that the Government will take expert advice that benefits farmers and consumers.

Ryan Bourne: Why Tyrie’s attempt to make the Competition Authority more like Which? magazine was wrong

He wanted the CMA to be both an aggressive consumer champion and decision-maker – “too much prosecution, judge, and jury” according to some.

Andy Street: With more shops opening again, here are high street lessons we can learn from the last recession

At John Lewis where I was a new MD, we decided to put our trust in technology – to build a business model for the future.

Nat Wei: How the internet could have been used to protect lives and livelihoods during this crisis. And how we can do better.

More emphasis could have been put on local delivery of services, drugs, and even treatment using mobile medical equipment and remote consultation.

Eamonn Butler: After the lockdown. If there is a role for the state, it is in getting out of the way of recovery.

It should remove those taxes and regulations that will stop business from applying their ingenuity on the problem of rebuilding from the ruins.

Ryan Bourne: What is the Government using the shutdown for?

Absent a clearly articulated strategy business uncertainty will heighten, and severe non-compliance is risked

Daniel Hannan: The abuse, outrage and viciousness is hurled overwhelmingly at those of us who back ending the lockdown

A common threat, especially in the form of a pathogen, flicks switches in our brains, making us less tolerant of dissent.

Graham Gudgin: Speed, scale, simplicity. Three principles for further action by Ministers to protect jobs and help people.

The job now needs to be completed by shoring up workers’ incomes and firms’ revenues to as close to 100 per cent as is practical.

David Gauke: The virus – and my journey from serving as Lord Chancellor to volunteering to stack shelves

Plus: Treasury and Work & Pensions lessons. Greenlighters v the rest. Remembering Attlee’s surplus. And: the key question now is “how”, not “what”.