absolutely, and one of the things we looked at, as you highlighted in your introduction, is ppe, where at the very beginning there was a global shortage of it and everyone was bidding against each other, so very high amounts were being spent. but what our concern. obviously, it will raise concerns about what happened at that particular time. but now we know that there s 10,000 shipping containers of ppe waiting to be used, and we re really clear with the government it needs to know where that is, how it s going to be used, and make sure it doesn t expire. and some of that, you suggested, is wasted. well, it s not all good for medical use. so if it s not good for medical use it can t be wasted, it needs to be used elsewhere. and the government likewise needs to have a plan. that is effectively taxpayer s money sitting in those shipping containers. that that s not wasted. thousands of people in the western united states are spending the weekend in evacuation centers as wildfires contin
of the challenges in the public finances, and yet that s going to be very difficult if the government takes that route it could also raise taxation or it could borrow more. but all of these have risks. and every pound spent on paying interest on borrowing is not a pound that could be spent on delivering public services. so it s not a surprise that there will be a long term cost and, if you look at the second world war and the first world war, there were similar challenges then. they were the last two very big episodes in pushing taxpayer spending to very high levels. and what we are talking about here is vast amounts of money being spent at high speed, given the nature of the pandemic. absolutely, and one of the things we looked at, as you highlighted in your introduction, is ppe, where at the very beginning there was a global shortage of it and everyone was bidding against each other, so very high amounts were being spent. but what our concern. obviously, it will raise concerns abou