Lockdown losers and winners

摘要

Forget about the winter of discontent. This has been the year of discontent, Among the many forgotten victims are office occupiers and landlords. Now, as well as having to contend with having to continue paying rent on offices not in use or not being able to recover rent on empty premises, many are also losing out in the business rates postcode lottery (p1). The problem is that the government is so distracted not just by what everyone hopes is the final act of the Covid crisis (what with all the vaccines on order) but also the final act of the Brexit saga that everything else, however important, has slipped down the agenda.