The COVID-19 pandemic doesn’t just demand a public health care response, but also action to support incomes during the economic slowdown. On Friday March 20, British chancellor Rishi Sunak claimed to do just this, announcing that the government would guarantee 80 percent of workers’ salaries, up to £2,500 a month. The largest state intervention in the private sector since World War II, the total £350 billion package was all the more striking in that it came from a Tory chancellor.

Faced with the coronavirus-induced panic, today even right-wing outlets are vaunting the merits of “Corbynite economics,” and “nationalizing the economy.” Clearly, the economic argument has changed even since December’s general election. But there are also major limits to the government’s plans — it has rejected calls to increase Statutory Sick Pay above the current £94.25 a week, and the situation of freelancers, the informally employed, and many private renters, remains unclear.

Navendu Mishra is the Labour MP for Stockport. Two weeks after his maiden speech to Parliament, he spoke to Jacobin’s David Broder about the government response to COVID-19, the extra pressures on working people in this crisis situation, and how the incoming Labour leadership can stand up for socialist values.