Shops on the high street have opened up again – but are consumers ready to spend?

The best case is that come the end of 2021, the world economy is back above the level it was last year, writes Hamish McRae. The worst case is that pre-Covid output won’t recover until much, much later

Camden High Street, normally brimming with crowds, is deserted during the lockdown (PA)

Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, wants Britons to hit the shops. But will we? So-called non-essential shops are opening across Britain today, and this week it looks as though the Bank of England will give another push to pump money into the system.

It is a start, but only a start. The pubs and restaurants? Well, that looks like another two or three weeks before they will open, and it may not be much fun when they do. So for the UK, it will be a halting, unsteady return to not-quite-normal.

The rest of the world is heading in the same direction, albeit at different speeds and in many cases faster than the UK. The most interesting example of that is the United States, where there is a massive difference between sparsely populated states out west and the most populous coastal ones.