Jeremy Corbyn’s claim that the Conservative government’s economic response to the coronavirus package shows that his policies were right proves what an astonishingly poor grasp of economics he has. The economic rescue package has involved a massive increase in spending and borrowing, and also a temporary part nationalisation of people’s wages – both things he has argued for. But the circumstances are totally different and what helps in an unprecedented crisis can be massively damaging if carried out in normal times. In medicine, some life-saving treatments can be life-threatening if inflicted on a healthy patient. If someone’s heart has stopped, it can be right to put electric pads on their chest to give them an electric shock to restart the heart. But if you did that on a healthy person, you could kill them. Chemotherapy can save the life of a cancer patient but will make a healthy person really ill.
The UK can only afford this huge economic rescue package because the government had already taken the difficult measures to reduce the annual budget deficit and curb the growth of the national debt.
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