Debt may be cheap, but the UK's poor productivity will cost us dear

Thinktanks urging cuts in business taxes seem to forget that many industries which once powered growth are now dying

The strangely easy agreement between economists of right and left that the chancellor should set aside concerns about Britain's rising debt levels still holds seven months after the first Covid-19 lockdown was imposed.

Thatcherite free-market thinktanks sing the same carefree song as Keynesian academics when debate turns to the size of this year's public spending deficit. There are differences in tone and it goes without saying that all would want money spent wisely, but their efforts focus on competing proposals for growth.

The Treasury view is that spending must be careful. As such, it is almost inevitable that recovery will take a decade or longer