As Boris Johnson begins what his senior team thinks will be a month-long road to recovery from the coronavirus, ministers have warned that his government faces mounting problems on the political, health and economic fronts as it battles the pandemic in his absence.
But as the prime minister’s condition continues to improve in hospital, BuzzFeed News can reveal his government faces fresh challenges on three fronts: Chancellor Rishi Sunak is under pressure from ministers to bolster his economic package as ministers fear millions of people have fallen through the cracks of his measures so far, thousands of small businesses could go bankrupt and the UK economy may contract by 25% this quarter.
In the early stages of the outbreak in January and February, Cummings and some Number 10 political aides saw the issue chiefly as one for officials and public health experts to get on top of, multiple sources said.
The political-civil service divide worsened two weeks ago, insiders said, when Sedwill attempted to “restructure” the government’s coronavirus response by putting senior officials in charge of a centralised team responsible for day-to-day management of the crisis. This “power grab” resulted in political advisers being “frozen out” of key decisions, one source claimed, adding that trust was at an “all time low”.
“The post-election policy agenda on which we won such a huge mandate could now be ruined. What can be saved is an unresolved question,” an MP said, raising the question of whether, should the pandemic dominate the next two years of UK politics and shift public opinion towards greater state intervention in the economy, senior aides would want to stick around.
RishiSunak should resign now! The way he has handled the furlough situation screams of incompetence and proves he is way out of his depth as a chancellor newstarterfurlough
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