Two weeks after the seriousness of the pandemic has finally dawned on the, remarkably, it seems as if the government is unaware of the fact that people without work need immediate support.

They seem to think all the self-employed have savings or available lines of credit available to provide them with £7,500 of income to cover a three month period before the government might pay them something. For some this is true. For a very great many it is completely untrue.

The result is that just when it is most needed it is now readily apparent that the social safety net in this country is remarkably weak. The test of it is a simple one: it is whether, or not, people in real need get support.

What is now apparent is that the government has no intention of correcting this for a great many people. Whether they are just ignorant of the need, or are simply indifferent or just still have an austerity mindset is unclear.

So far just 17,000 businesses have been granted a tax payment deferral. 30,000 businesses have applied for loans, and although there is no data yet on how many have been approved, it will be many fewer. All my clients that have applied so far have been turned down.

No employer, let alone an employee, will see any benefit from the job retention scheme until the end of April, at the earliest. And the self-employed will need to wait until at least June, although that date was always optimistic. Privately, HMRC admit that to build a completely new system to pay the self-employed - when the criteria are not straightforward will take months and will then need testing. But the Chancellor can’t admit this right now.

Meanwhile, in the real world people still have to make payment of many of their fixed obligations, almost none of which have been waived by statute. And give it only a week or two and increasing numbers of people will find it more and more difficult to make payment for basic necessities, like food. Believe me that is not an exaggeration: these are some of my clients and this is what they are telling me.

We are nevertheless better off than most ordinary Americans whose government seems willing to bail out companies while doing little for its citizens, at least that is until things get ugly and in a country with a gun culture they could get very ugly indeed.

The solution should be obvious which is to make at least some payments on account to those who are now dependent upon the government’s support schemes. The day will come when they will greatly regret their failure to have done this already….but it is not too late.

We should all be telling that.

Stay safe.

Noel Guilford