They said we would ‘build back better’ after Covid. What breathtaking deceit | John Harris

Instead of rewarding us for our suffering, Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak are offering nothing but more hardship

The Covid-19 era is not yet over. The worst might have long since receded - though deaths linked to the virus go on - and for most of us, infection now means nothing more serious than a few days in bed. But the pandemic's grim and complex legacy is becoming clearer, in continuing tragedies that still seem cruelly overlooked: the prevalence of long Covid, a stark crisis of mental health, and developmental problems among children who spent long months deprived of the most basic human experiences.

Partly because the NHS was so consumed by the pandemic, we now seem to be facing an upsurge in deaths from conditions such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes that were left undetected or untreated. Covid has hugely accelerated an exodus of adults from the workforce that is causing ministers no end of anxiety. More generally, millions of people are still living with the effects of two long years full of bereavement, fear and loneliness.