Hold your nerve Rishi and make Britain prosper

GOOD NEWS about Britain appears to have been banned from the airwaves lately, but there is plenty of it around should you care to seek it out.

- Patrick O'Flynn

Not only are we poised to be the first developed country to exit the pandemic thanks to our sky-high vaccination rates and holding our nerve in the face of Omicron, but we will have done so without suffering the major civil strife that has scarred many comparable countries.

More than that, new figures show our economy had made up all of the 10 per cent shrinkage it suffered at the onset of the pandemic in 2020, by November 2021.

To have achieved such a bounce-back so quickly and without descending into the mass unemployment that was predicted is truly remarkable. By comparison, it took Britain five years to recover the six per cent GDP shrinkage inflicted by the 2008 financial crash.

Given that he would have been panned for a poor economic performance, Boris Johnson is entitled to take a major share of credit for such a storming recovery and for keeping employment levels high.

BUT THE real star of the show has been the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak. Despite being a total rookie in a great office of state – he only took over at the Treasury in February 2020 – his stewardship of the economy throughout the pandemic has been first class.