Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Greater Manchester will be moved into the highest tier of coronavirus restrictions from midnight on Thursday, Boris Johnson has confirmed as he refused to say whether a £60m offer of support for the region remains on the table following failed negotiations.
Speaking at a Downing Street press conference, the prime minister did not specify how much support the region would get. Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, had sought £90m in support for businesses and staff affected by the measures, dropping the request to £65m, but ministers offered £60m and ended the talks without a deal.
Deaths from coronavirus will continue to rise for at least three weeks and the NHS risks being overwhelmed unless the strictest curbs are imposed on another 4 million people, leaders in northern England have been told.
A decision on whether to extend tier 3 restrictions – closing pubs and restaurants and banning household mixing – to Greater Manchester and Lancashire is expected on Thursday.
World economic outlook says 2020 impact is less than thought but there will be deep scars
The International Monetary Fund has scaled back its estimate of the hit to the global economy from Covid-19 this year but warned that the final bill for the pandemic would total $28tn (£21.5tn) in lost output.
Gita Gopinath, the IMF’s economic counsellor, described coronavirus as the worst crisis since the Great Depression, and said the pandemic would leave deep and enduring scars caused by job losses, weaker investment and children being deprived of education.
Hospitality businesses in the north of England have said they will struggle to survive on the new support package unveiled by the chancellor if they are forced into weeks of local lockdowns.
Carol Ross, the landlady of the Roscoe Head pub in Liverpool, said the new jobs support package- which includes the government paying 67% of employee salaries if businesses are forced to shut down and a further £3,000 a month in cash grants towards other costs – was not enough.
The UK followed in the footsteps of the German government by adopting a jobs support scheme on Thursday. The announcement came as German commentators spoke of their confusion at the zig-zag approach to tackling the coronavirus, describing a nation caught up in feelings of panic, disbelief and disillusionment.
“Military intervention to control coronavirus rules a possibility,” ran one banner headline in the business daily Handelsblatt this week, while an editorial in the Süddeutsche Zeitung was titled: “Johnson’s skittishness endangers his country.”
Rishi Sunak’s winter economy plan prioritises additional support for “viable” jobs. However, critics have warned that other measures are still needed to help people who have already lost their jobs or will lose them despite the new government scheme.
Here are five measures that could help keep workers in jobs, but were missing from the chancellor’s winter economy plan:
It all looked so different for Rishi Sunak three weeks ago. After a bleak early spring in which the economy was sacrificed for health reasons, there were signs that the worst might be over.
The government believes it may have paid out up to £3.5bn in wrong or fraudulent claims for the furlough scheme.
Jim Harra, the top civil servant at HM Revenue & Customs, said that his staff had calculated for the possibility that as much as 10% of the money might have gone to the wrong places.
Britain has entered the deepest recession since records began as official figures on Wednesday showed the economy shrank by more than any other major nation during the coronavirus outbreak in the three months to June.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of economic prosperity, fell in the second quarter by 20.4% compared with the previous three months – the biggest quarterly decline since comparable records began in 1955.
Official measure to be declared this week as coronavirus lockdown shrinks GDP by 21% in second quarter
Britain’s economy will be officially declared in recession this week for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis, as the coronavirus outbreak plunges the country into the deepest slump on record.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday are expected to show that gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of economic prosperity, fell in the three months to June by 21%.
Boris Johnson’s approach to a winter wave of Covid-19 is to hope for the best but plan for the worst, he said on Friday. The worst-case scenario was spelled out earlier in the week by the Academy of Medical Sciences: as many as 120,000 hospital patients dead. Avoiding that will depend on the state of preparations in many areas.
In wide-ranging interview, PM says jobs furlough not healthy and urges restraint as pubs open
Boris Johnson has expressed opposition to removing a statue of Cecil Rhodes from Oxford University, in a rare newspaper interview in which he also said the jobs furlough scheme was not “healthy” for the economy in the long term and would end soon.
Speaking to the Evening Standard, the prime minister said he did not agree with the decision of Oriel College to take down its statue of the Victorian imperialist, as he was “in favour of people understanding our past with all its imperfections”.
Green campaigners and housing experts warn Boris Johnson’s recovery plan could swiftly become a liability
Boris Johnson’s plan to build tens of thousands of new homes risks locking in high carbon emissions for decades to come, if they are built to today’s poor efficiency standards instead of being designed for net zero carbon.
The prime minister’s plans to “build, build, build” form the centrepiece of his “new deal” to lift Britain’s economy out of the coronavirus recession. About £12bn will go to building 180,000 new homes to relieve the housing crisis, while new hospitals and schools will be constructed to improve degraded public services.
EU agrees to look for early common ground as PM asks it to ‘put a tiger in the tank’ of talks
Boris Johnson has said there is no reason why the outline of a Brexit deal cannot be sealed by the end of July, after he asked EU leaders at a video summit to “put a tiger in the tank” of stalled talks.
In a boost for the prime minister’s plans to secure a deal by the end of the summer, the EU leaders agreed to strive to find early common ground on trade and security to avoid unnecessary economic chaos next year.
Germany amazed the whole continent with last week’s stimulus package, but it paves the way for countries such as France to agree an effective coronavirus response
From champion of austerity to Europe’s biggest spender – Germany has travelled a long way in just a few months. The notoriously frugal ministry of finance has agreed to spend €130bn – a sum equal to 4% of national income – on more than 50 initiatives to promote growth across the country.
This breathtaking investment programme comes on top of the almost 30% of GDP the government has so far spent on rescuing businesses and protecting jobs during the coronavirus crisis.
The chancellor says the coronavirus job retention scheme will be extended for four months, until the end of October. There will be no changes until the end of July, he says, and in August, September and October it will continue with more flexibility. Sunak added that 7.5m jobs have been supported by the furlough scheme and almost 1m businesses helped
Even faced with another great depression, wealthier EU countries are resisting action on debt that could ultimately keep the union together
Europe’s leaders are worried – and rightly so. The deadly impact of Covid-19 has resulted in a full-scale health crisis. Evidence of the economic consequences of trying to keep populations safe from coronavirus is starting to emerge. The political ramifications are only starting to be assessed – but they could be profound.
The European Union has found itself in some tight spots over the years, but always found a way of muddling through. It survived the financial crisis and will cope with Brexit. But this time things are a lot more serious.
NEW: OBR publishes an economic scenario (not forecast) for what might happen to the UK economy as a result of #Covid19. It assumes a 3 month lockdown.
Unemployment: ⬆️by 2 million.
GDP (2020) ⬇️ 13% in 2020.
If so, would be the worst economic contraction for a century.
Here is an excerpt from the report published by the Office for Budget Responsibility today looking at what impact the coronavirus lockdown could have on the economy. It says GDP could fall by 35% in the second quarter of the year.
Here is an extract.
In addition to its impact on public health, the coronavirus outbreak will substantially raise public sector net borrowing and debt, primarily reflecting economic disruption. The government’s policy response will also have substantial direct budgetary costs, but the measures should help limit the long-term damage to the economy and public finances – the costs of inaction would certainly have been higher ...
We do not attempt to predict how long the economic lockdown will last – that is a matter for the government, informed by medical advice. But, to illustrate some of the potential fiscal effects, we assume a three-month lockdown due to public health restrictions followed by another three-month period when they are partially lifted. For now, we assume no lasting economic hit.