They called it the Great Frost of 1709, and for good reason. There was no weather forecasting in those days, no warnings and no preparations, so when temperatures collapsed across Europe and the Thames froze over, an economic, social and humanitarian calamity was guaranteed. Crop failure and death of livestock led to starvation. Flu and plague swirled around the continent, while the War of the Spanish Succession continued to destroy resources and lives.
But for Britain, one of our greatest ever recessions started abruptly when the thermometer plunged to -12c in Upminster. In an eminently readable 25-page report republished by the Royal Society, Rvd William Derham, a self-taught scientist, wrote that “this Frost was greater (if not more universal also) than any other within the Memory of Man… of shorter continuance, [but] more intense than [previous episodes]”. It is now believed 1709 saw the coldest winter of the past 500 years; in Orlando: a Biography, Virginia Woolf described how “birds froze in mid air and fell like stones to the ground”.
The same was true of the British economy, which collapsed by more than it ever has since; in France, 630,000 people died over two years and the birthrate plummeted. The geopolitical implications were immense. Russia defeated a weakened Sweden. The Duke of Marlborough scored a pyrrhic victory over France at the Battle of Malplaquet that September – on another fateful 9/11. The battle inspired Marlbrough s’en va-t-en guerre, and the horrendous body count shocked Europe.
Some 311 years later, another natural catastrophe, this time a zoonotic disease causing the worst pandemic (for the West) since the Hong Kong flu of 1968, is once again wreaking havoc, killing thousands, crushing the global economy and threatening to usher in a series of unpredictable social, political, technological and geopolitical shifts.
The UK death toll, when eventually measured properly, is unlikely to be contained to 20,000, a number which some officials until recently thought would be a good result. England and Wales suffered a far greater than usual number of deaths in the week ending April 3. But it is the economic impact of the lockdown – its worst side-effect – which is coming as the greatest shock, not least to hopeless Treasury mandarins. We have entered a mini-economic Ice Age, and its impact on our society will be horrendous.
The economy will collapse by 35 per cent this quarter and by 12.8 per cent for the year, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the worst full-year decline since the Great Frost. Unemployment will shoot up by 2.1 million to 3.4 million, 10 per cent of the workforce. The fiscal costs matter less, but they are equally horrendous. The Treasury will borrow £273 billion this year, taking the deficit to 13.9 per cent of GDP – not quite the 25 per cent seen in World War 2, but close. For the first time, the state will spend over £1 trillion, taking public expenditure to 51.7 per cent of national income.