‘Eat Out to Help Out’ was a good idea – and the Covid inquiry’s rewriting of history is dangerous
The then chancellor had to protect public health and the economy, writes John Rentoul. Which is why I raise a glass to his efforts to save the hospitality industry (as I did in my Covid gastropub)
Rishi Sunak was behind the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, an initiative launched in August 2020 to kickstart restaurants after the lockdown
The Covid inquiry appears to be trying to rewrite history backwards. It has started with what “everyone knows”, which is that Boris Johnson locked down too late.
Everything else follows from this: Johnson ignored early warnings; he was too slow to implement lockdown once he had decided; he was too keen to open the economy up again; and Rishi Sunak, who was then chancellor, took a disastrous decision to subsidise people to go back into restaurants in August 2020.
None of this is true, but the inquiry seems to be following the popular myth instead of questioning it. Witnesses repeatedly contradict the assumptions behind the questions they are asked, but the caravan rumbles on.
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