The Observer view on the reopening of the economy

Now is not the right time for the government to step back and abandon targeted financial support

It was trailed as a desperately needed cash injection on the scale of Roosevelt's New Deal. Yet when the prime minister set out his plans for infrastructure investment last week, they amounted to a tiny fraction - less than 100 per head - of the more than 4,000 per person spent by the US government after the Great Depression. The chancellor is expected to set out more detail this week on what he will do to save jobs and boost demand. But all the signs are that it will be unequal to the task of protecting people's livelihoods in the wake of the biggest economic downturn for 300 years.

The unprecedented scale of the economic shutdown necessitated by the pandemic paved the way for a huge package of financial support for individuals and businesses. There have undoubtedly been important gaps, but in the main, chancellor Rishi Sunak responded swiftly and pragmatically. Just over three months later, and it seems Sunak is determined to reset course, away from the large-scale intervention that the economy continues to require, and towards a more traditionally laissez-faire approach. Hence the move towards relaxing the lockdown to allow large swaths of the economy to reopen - despite the warnings from some prominent scientists that this is happening too soon - and the planned phase out of much government financial support in the coming weeks.