The EconomistMarch 28th 2020 Britain 512 The government will do its best to even
things out. It will bear 80% of the wage bills
of employees furloughed due to the crisis
and is offering firms tax breaks and soft
loans. But though it promises some relief
for the self-employed, these measures had
not been announced as The Economistwent
to press. And the lower-paid may struggle
disproportionately to cope without a fifth
of their wages, and with the cramped con-
ditions in which many poorer Britons live.
That is not a problem for Nicholas Cole-
ridge, chairman of the Victoria and Albert
museum. He has turned his country pile
into something he says resembles an out-
post of WeWork, the co-working firm. Four
of his children are working from home; the
family’s garden folly could come in handy
for self-isolation. More space and a higher
level of education will make it easier for the
better-off to teach their children, who will
therefore return to school even further
ahead of their peers. According to Teacher
Tapp, an app which surveys teachers, 27%
of private secondary-school teachers com-
municated with pupils via video on the
first day schools were shut, compared with
2% of those in state schools.
Others are less able to adapt. Families in
which both parents work may not be able to
supervise their children’s education. James
Donovan, a self-employed carpenter in
Bath, was working on a barn conversion be-
fore the government advised people to stay
at home. “When Boris said ‘lockdown’, I
was told not to come to work,” he says. So
far, he has struggled to apply for benefits.
“You’ll be waiting years to get through to
anyone on the phone.” The government is
redeploying thousands of staff to process
applications, 477,000 of which were made
in the nine days to March 24th.
Even if they can stay at home, poor fam-
ilies are more likely to be packed together
in a small space, helping spread the dis-
ease. According to an analysis of govern-
ment data by the Joseph Rowntree Founda-
tion, a charity, 7% of English people in the
poorest fifth of households live in houses
without enough bedrooms, compared with
less than 0.5% of the richest fifth. Ethnic
minorities are also more likely to live in
crowded houses. Nearly a third of Bangla-
deshi households have fewer bedrooms
than they need. The comparable rate for
white British households is 2%.
The final disparity is age. As well as be-
ing more vulnerable to covid-19, the elderly
are more likely to live alone. About half of
the 8m Britons who live alone are aged 65 or
older. For some, the lockdown will com-
pound feelings of loneliness. Many strug-
gle to use the internet. Only 44% of retired
Britons say they have good internet skills,
compared with 95% of students.
One elderly Londoner is grappling with
online shopping for the first time after her
goddaughter helped her create an account.
“The website kept crashing,” she says. “I’ve
discovered if you do it at three or four
o’clock in the morning it’s easier to get on.”
They are, however, a hardy bunch. Several
have told anxious grandchildren to stop
worrying, since they experienced far worse
during the second world war.
That experience brought the country to-
gether, and perhaps this one will too. But
some fissures may deepen.^7Newcastle
Sunderland
Middlesbrough
Hull
DoncasterBrightonReadingLondon
Oxford2520 30 35 40It’s harder up north
Britain, share of employees who
could work from home
By Primary Urban Area, 2018, %Source: Centre for CitiesW
hen boris johnsonannounced a
partial lockdown in a sombre prime-
time broadcast on March 23rd, polls put
popular support for his decision at 93%.
Criticism was less of the severity of the
measure (though the Daily Telegraphhead-
lined the news “End of Freedom”) than that
it came so late, long after most of the rest of
Europe.
Mr Johnson held his first meeting on co-
vid-19 only in early March. Initially, the ad-
vice to the public was little more than to
wash their hands regularly. There was even
talk of not slowing the virus down too vig-
orously, so as to achieve “herd immunity”.
What threw this idea overboard was a study
by Imperial College London, suggesting
that letting the virus spread uncontrolled
might mean as many as 250,000 deaths,
primarily among older people.
Even when the decision was made to domore to stop the disease, disagreement
persisted over tactics. Mr Johnson’s in-
stinctive liberalism sat ill with a compul-
sory lockdown enforced by the police. Ac-
cordingly, he chose to rely on moral
suasion, not compulsion, to get people to
work from home and avoid socialising. The
government ordered the closure of pubs
and restaurants only on March 20th, weeks
after the rest of Europe.
But the government’s polite requests
were widely ignored. The pub closures
were treated by many as an excuse for gi-
gantic final street parties. London saw
much smaller falls in road and rail usage
than most other European cities.
What forced Mr Johnson’s lockdown de-
cision was that the weekend of March
21st-22nd was the first properly warm one
of the year. Thousands of people visited the
seaside, Snowdonia and other recreational
places, clogging the roads. Big crowds
thronged into many of London’s parks. Ef-
forts to remain two metres apart, as the
prime minister urged, were notable mainly
for their absence.
That has changed since the lockdown.
According to data from Citymapper, a navi-
gation app, in the week before the lock-
down, Londoners were moving around
about half as much as they usually do; the
day after, the figure was 15%. That evening,
Kings Cross was spookily still. The few
trains moving in and out had hardly any
passengers, and most of the handful of
people on its vast forecourt were beggars.
There are still holes. People who cannot
do their jobs from home are supposed to go
to work, so long as employers can keep
them far enough apart, which is often
tricky. The Tube remains a source of conta-
gion: service reductions mean that rush-
hour trains seem fuller than ever. Enforce-
ment of the new rules is spotty: the police
talk of small fines, but also suggest that
their effort would be largely persuasive,
not coercive.
Mr Johnson is also under fire for not in-
vesting enough in testing equipment, not
least from Jeremy Hunt, a former health
secretary and his erstwhile leadership ri-
val, who believes extensive testing and
tracing were key to South Korea’s contain-
ment of covid-19. But the nhsis mobilising
resources swiftly, from within the service,
from the private sector and from the army,
which may give it the breathing space it
needs to cope with covid-19.
The prime minister must certainly hope
so. His premiership was meant to be de-
fined by Brexit, the issue that brought it
about. But it now seems more likely to rest
on the fight against covid-19 and its after-
math. And even if he wins this war, his fu-
ture is not guaranteed: after his hero, Win-
ston Churchill, beat the Nazis, he lost the
1945 election to a revitalised Labour Party
by a record margin. 7The prime minister’s belated lockdown
may determine his political futurePoliticsSlow starter