The looming economic disaster will only get worse if those leading us stick to dogma

Conservatives must understand that the country they rule is not exceptional

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The emerging economic forecasts involve such outlandish numbers that they numb as much as shock. The worst recession for 300 years? A worst-case budget deficit this year of 516bn? The greater shock, of course, is that we are living through a pandemic that has already claimed such a vast number of deaths. All else necessarily pales into insignificance.

But those economic numbers will steadily grow in salience - not least because the consequences have to be wrestled with by a government led by second-rate free-market Brexiters. Their ideological mindset - that government and public borrowing are bad, that Britain is an exceptional country for which normal rules do not apply, that robust individualism and free markets are the best default position - is obviously wrong and out of time. Coronavirus is becoming the trigger for a paradigmatic shift in thinking: only thus will Britain be restored not just to medical but to economic and social health.

There is only one way to get the country moving again in all ways - economic, social and cultural

Coronavirus is becoming the trigger for a paradigmatic shift in thinking