Can Rishi Sunak prevent mass unemployment?

There is only one test for what the Treasury is billing – with all its magnificent talent for hyperbole – an ‘update’, which is the impact it will have on taming the looming ghoul of mass unemployment.

Will Rishi Sunak’s stimulus package deter or even reverse decisions to sack people by those businesses that are most squeezed by the social distancing imperative? That are suffering both a reduction in capacity (tables removed from restaurants, for example) and demand? There are millions employed in such industries, from shops, to bars, to theatres.

The expected targeting of VAT cuts on pubs, restaurants and so on may encourage us – for better or ill – to order that extra pint or plate of nachos, and damn the Prime Minister’s clarion call for us to fight the flab (as it used to be called). But if you are a publican, you will probably pocket the marginal profit and still sack half your bar staff, given that the number of people allowed inside your pub will have shrunk so much.