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.

Ryan Bourne: Calm down, stay cool – and drop this talk of tax rises. It’s too early to know how everything will settle down.

It’s baffling why think-tanks are taking the OBR assessments as truth, given its prediction record.

Luke Stanley: With rising unemployment, Ministers should look beyond work-related paths out of crime – to families

Research has found that offenders visited in prison by their family were less likely to reoffend within a year of release than those who were not.

Ryan Bourne: The Right’s glory was its mastery of economic policy. Why has it given up even thinking about it?

Precisely what does Johnson think was wrong with the 2010-2018 deficit reduction agenda? Who knows? The Tories don’t have a clear economic story.

Warwick Lightfoot: The Government must borrow more to boost the post-Coronavirus recovery

After a decade of forward guidance, credit easing and quantitative easing, it was clear even before the Covid-19 crisis that monetary policy had run out of road.

WATCH: Post-financial crisis style austerity “is not a done deal” – chairman of the Office of Budget Responsibility

“We’re certainly going to see temporarily a considerably higher amount of government borrowing”, says Robert Chote.

This really is the time to let the deficit grow big enough to look after itself

If, that is, interest rates carry on at rock bottom rates. But we have to take a chance on growing our way out of this crisis.

Andy Street: Our West Midlands recovery plan – and why no one-size-fits-all Whitehall scheme would work

Here, the recovery of our automotive and construction sectors is crucial – firms in the region directly employ around 46,500 people.

Ryan Bourne: Don’t fret about this debt – at least not yet. Big tax rises would choke economic recovery.

If it proves a temporary blowout rather than permanent, accumulated debt levels being modestly higher looks manageable.

Caroline Elsom: We calculate the astronomical cost of the virus as double the sum spent each year on healthcare

As in 2008, the line between survival and disaster will rest on the bond markets’ trust in the British Government and on the reputation of the Bank of England.

Neil O’Brien: Salvaging the economy. Could we just live with more borrowing for a bit? Maybe, maybe not.

Hopefully it will be crisis averted, and we’ll have a bit more time to fix the hole. But sooner or later, difficult choices on tax and spending are coming.

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.

The longer the lockdown lasts, the bigger Sunak’s bazooka will be

We don’t expect the shutdown to last in full until summer.  But if it did, Britain might well be moving towards Universal Credit as a basic income.

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

James Heywood: The virus has exposed the urgent need to reform how we treat the self-employed

The tax benefits of being self-employed should reflect genuine value added relative to normal employment.