PM Johnson ‘getting better’ in intensive care as UK extends overdraft

U.S. President Donald Trump said Johnson appeared to be doing “better” after what he described as a “tough bout”.

With a prime minister in intensive care, the British government was facing two major issues: how to finance a vast increase in state spending to support the shuttered economy and the timing of lifting lockdown measures.

As the world’s fifth largest economy faces potentially the worst economic hit since World War Two amid soaring spending, the government said it had expanded its overdraft facility with the Bank of England.

The Bank of England has agreed temporarily to finance government borrowing in response to COVID-19 if funds cannot immediately be raised from debt markets, reviving a measure last used to any significant degree during the 2008 financial crisis.

The government and BoE said any borrowing from the Ways and Means facility – effectively the government’s overdraft with the BoE – would be repaid by the end of the year.