London will be hit harder than anywhere by the sharp ratchet of restrictions on our lives which have been announced.
Exactly six months after Boris Johnson first imposed a lockdown which was meant to last only weeks, companies preparing to bring workers back to offices have had their plans thrown into reverse.
Restaurants, encouraged to reopen by ministers not long ago, are being shut by curfew. Galleries, theatres and concert halls have made extraordinary efforts to restart but now do not know what awaits them. Our public transport system is bleeding cash. Our shops are going bust. Our city centre is frighteningly quiet. The wounds this will cause to our city’s economy and the lives of Londoners are savage.
So at the very least we need to know what the plan is, why the rules are essential and what will be done to help London survive and recover.
Yet London is being forgotten.
We hear a lot about the distinct policy in Scotland — population over five million, annual GDP about £170 billion — a policy led by nationalist politicians to help engineer independence. But where is the carefully crafted policy to suit the much more significant needs of London — population nine million, annual GDP about £550 billion? There isn’t one.
The city pays the bills for the rest of the country and is the only world-class centre in our economy but it plays no part in deciding what is being done to it.
Mr Johnson rarely seems to remember he is a London MP. Rishi Sunak is silent, although as Chancellor he must know how much London’s success matters to Britain. The best the Mayor can do is mutter about the need for more cash and call for lockdowns.
Our amazing city should be leading the response to Covid-19, not be a victim of it.
It has the skills and resources to sort things out itself. It is full of scientists, project managers, tech start-ups, great communicators, teaching hospitals, innovators, yet none of this is being put to use.
As we report today, testing in the capital is a disgrace, with rates falling — which may be why official data shows new infections in London were lower in the last full week of data than the week before.
If those figures are correct, is the shock of new restrictions really needed in the city? If it isn’t, then we need a system which can give us the full picture.
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Sir Paul Nurse, head of the Francis Crick Institute, tells us today how a city plan for local testing could have worked. He’s tried to be part of one. It is not too late for London to go it alone and rid itself of the chaos which has swamped the national system.
Quick, easily available tests alone would do more to keep London open and safe than the blunt tools picked by Mr Johnson yesterday — tools he will no doubt replace with others within days.
As our poll shows today, confidence in the Government’s ability to deal with Covid-19 is falling away fast. It is trying to run a response for the whole of England and it isn’t working.
There is public support for new restrictions, and we do not oppose them, but alongside them we also need to know what the Government’s aim is. To live with Covid-19? To eradicate it? To hope for a vaccine?
We need to know, too, what will be done to support businesses in our city and get them open as fast as possible. We need to know what assessment is being made of the damage being done to our city’s economy.
And because our Government cannot answer these questions, we need London to lead.