Rishi Sunak is getting quite good at explaining U-turns, having made so many

Having just announced an extension of the furlough scheme to 2 December, the chancellor is now pushing it to the end of March, writes John Rentoul

Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the exchequer, announces yet another big change in economic policy (Reuters TV)

When the chancellor said “the economic risks are skewed to the downside” we knew things were bad. This is elegant Bank-of-England-speak for: “It’s all gone horribly wrong.” Rishi Sunak had come to the House of Commons to explain that he was making yet another U-turn because the coronavirus pandemic had taken a turn for the worse.  

He was good at it – as well he should be, as this must be the seventh or eighth statement he has made announcing a dramatic change of policy since he became chancellor in February. The furlough scheme, which had only just been extended to the end of the lockdown in England on 2 December, has now been extended until March, at the rate of 80 per cent, and at a cost not yet even begun to be calculated.  

He went back in time to those innocent days in the summer when it had seemed possible to open up the economy and keep the virus at a manageably low level. “We knew there would likely be a resurgence in the spread of the virus, but with increased NHS capacity and Test and Trace, our belief was we would be able to stay ahead of the virus,” he said. It was almost as if he were shaking his head at the naivety of it all, but he pointedly reminded the opposition that he was supported by the TUC and the CBI at the time.