Printing money, a new national youth corps… time to think the unthinkable | Will Hutton

The high street is open again. But an explosive rise in unemployment is
still on the cards

Shops can open tomorrow, but until social distancing rules can be dispensed with completely, expect business to be slow. Even in a world with an effective vaccine and a robust testing, tracking and tracing system that would give shoppers confidence, British retailing, with online spending having doubled in three months, would have to reinvent itself.

The British high street is being destroyed before our eyes. Last year, retailing supported 2.9 million jobs. If it supports half that number in five years' time, we will be lucky.

The return to work is more cautious than in countries whose public health record is better