ANTHONY BUTLER: Replace Year Zero fantasies with healthy pragmatism

The Covid-19 crisis is stress testing all of our political leaders. Ministers and senior officials are patently exhausted. The uncertainty that surrounds the impact of the pandemic has left their heads spinning.

Covid-19 will be our companion for 18 months or two years, until a vaccine or effective treatment becomes available. The early lockdown was appropriate, but the government has taken too long to register the magnitude of the associated economic crisis. Now it seems curiously unwilling to take steps to ramp up economic activity...