Tower Hamlets Council will tell you that it is cutting its services and increasing council tax by 4.99 per cent from April because of the impact of Covid-19 and the government not helping.

What they won’t tell you is that the government gave it an extra £63million of Covid funding but the council only needed to spend £55.5m of it this year, leaving £7.5m spare (£1 million = 1pc increase in council tax). The government has also given us another £17m in the coming financial year for Covid.

The question is whether the council budget, to be agreed this Thursday night, will delay cutting jobs by using some of this extra money. Or will the council save all of the extra money because of concerns over what might happen in the future to its business rates income, including if workers do not return to their offices?