We urgently need a fairer tax system so that rich people like me help solve the fallout from coronavirus, not just profit from it

• Gary Stevenson is an economist and former interest rate trader

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I made my first million the year Greece went under. I was 24 years old at the time.

I’d attended a presentation given by one of Citibank’s senior economists, in which he explained that government debts of the world’s major economies had grown to dangerous levels, and were continuing to grow. He warned that markets could stop lending to some of these governments, forcing a devastating round of austerity on to already battered economies.

If we repeat 2008, buying a house with one’s own wages will be a thing of the past

Related: Don't expect a snapback for the UK economy after lockdown is lifted | Larry Elliott

We celebrate VE Day with the need to forge new trading relationships and with the grotesque economic burden of the coronavirus

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In making his landmark post-Brexit speech in February under Sir James Thornhill’s baroque painted ceiling in the Royal Hospital, Greenwich, Boris Johnson believed he had found the perfect setting to paint his own picture of Britain charting a new course as a free-trading, independent, open and liberal nation.

Like the painting above him, eulogising the triumph of William and Mary over the popish and tyrannical French, Johnson’s speech was an optimistic and patriotic piece of work. It offered a distinctive vision of British prosperity and diplomatic superiority.

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