The chancellor’s Omicron support package for the hospitality sector is worth £1bn, enough for Rishi Sunak to claim he listened to the cries of distress from pubs, restaurants and leisure businesses and acted. It is hard, though, to escape the sense that the measures could quickly be overtaken by events. That’s a limited bailout from the point of view of businesses, but it does nothing for employees who would be at risk of losing their jobs in a proper lockdown. Greencoat’s four founders, plus a few staff, currently own the business, so that’s a very large payday for them. The watchdog has few teeth, but nobody else seems shocked by the rapid normalisation of high-risk speculative instruments.

Source: The Guardian December 21, 2021 23:05 UTC