China should pay reparations for Covid

As Commonwealth heads of government conclude their Samoan powwow, Rachel Reeves' economic woes could be about to get a thousand times worse. Our foreign friends are seeking reparations for slavery, and the numbers they are putting forward will make its 22 billion black hole look like a pinprick on a banana.

Luckily, I have a cunning plan. What if we asked the Chinese for compensation for Covid?

These days, almost no one still claims that the pandemic started in a wet market. Even if they did, it would still be their fault if they ate pangolins. In reality, we all know that they brought down the entire world economy by playing at making perfume with pathogens in a laboratory. It is now absolutely right that they pay the price.

How hard we should hit them is anyone's guess, and may depend on whether we take our chances alone or embark on some sort of class action. For example, we could join forces with those in the United States, especially if Trump is re-elected. He always liked to call Covid the Chinese virus and would love to take on Xi Jinping.

According to various estimates, the pandemic has cost America approximately $16 trillion, or 90% of the country's total GDP. Ideally, that's only a few trillion less than China earns (around $19 trillion), meaning that if it's willing to do the right thing, it could afford to pay back the bulk batch.

As for how much Beijing owes Britain for the blunders of the men and women of Wuhan in white coats, the minimum we could accept would be 400 billion, which is the amount spent on Covid-specific measures like leave.

Of course, the real cost to the nation was a multiple of that amount. The question is how to find a figure to restart negotiations. How to put a price on lost lives and livelihoods; the derailment of education for a generation of children; tens, even hundreds of thousands of cancers missed; an epidemic of loneliness and dependence linked to confinement? The truth, of course, is that you can't. It is as incalculable as the cost of slavery to the nations and peoples affected, especially when it all ended centuries ago.

But since the Commonwealth leaders are taking their chances, we might as well take our chances too. In addition to the 400 billion invested in initiatives such as rebound loans; To save the NHS and all those vaccines and boosters, our compensation claim must incorporate the seismic political consequences of the pandemic.

After all, without Covid there would have been no celebrations in Downing Street to break the lockdown and abruptly end Boris Johnson's tenure, meaning Liz Truss could still be Foreign Secretary. This means that Kwasi Kwarteng would never have been chancellor and there would have been no famous mini-budget. The bond markets would never have been scared; Truss would not have had to resign; and there would have been no Prime Minister called Rishi Sunak.

Johnson himself, who might have considered submitting an individual claim, would not have come close to dying from the virus and may well still be in Downing Street today, preparing for a general election that may well deliver another overwhelming majority to conservatives.

Working from home, with all its disastrous consequences for productivity, would never have taken off and no one would still be wearing those stupid pale blue masks. Landfills would not be clogged with mountains of PPE, and pharmaceutical companies could have devoted their resources to developing treatments and cures for other products. The NHS would not be in such a disaster, and we would not all be preparing for a budget disaster.

How the hell do you quantify all of this?

I have no idea, but if Sir Keir Starmer wants to accept these claims from Caribbean countries, he better get out his calculator.