Britain is facing an unfolding unemployment crisis

The scale of the crisis was underlined by the 12,000 job losses announced in the hours and days that followed the prime minister’s speech last week from a range of employers including Airbus, Easyjet, Upper Crust owner SSP Group, Accenture and Harrods.

We know that the UK is suffering the worst economic hit of all the industrialised nations.

Unemployment is already at its highest level in a generation and without firm action, the government risks allowing structural unemployment to become a feature of life in a way that our country hasn’t seen for decades.

As the awful events in Leicester have shown, the coronavirus has not gone away. The risk of further local lockdowns, or even a second peak, hangs in the air.

Even if, as we hope, we have seen the back of the worst of this virus, the long-tail economic effects will be felt disproportionately across different sectors of our economy.

I’m seeing the impact of this locally.

During the last month we’ve hit a new record in terms of the numbers of people contacting me for help. Many of them are in dire straits.

As Ilford North’s MP and one of Keir Starmer’s shadow treasury ministers, I am doing everything I can to keep up the pressure on government to do whatever it takes to save lives and protect people’s livelihoods.

I’d strongly encourage Recorder readers to shop locally to support local businesses wherever you can. We’ll get through this together.