Don’t let pandemic losers slide further in a K-shaped recovery

It goes against conservative instincts, but another 100bn should be spent on improving the prospects of those worst hit by Covid

It's time we talked about K". Britain, it's now commonly agreed, will be climbing out of our economic nadir in the months ahead even if the rate of recovery is unclear - but what worries thoughtful economists, notably but not only the new US treasury secretary Janet Yellen, is its Covid-dominated K character.

Essentially winners from the pandemic - the better-off, hi-tech companies, leading brands, the healthy, those whose work held up over lockdown and live in prosperous neighbourhoods - are going to do even better, moving up the upward-sloping part of the K.