Hello and welcome to a special Spectator podcast, sponsored by the wealth management firm Charles Stanley.

So has the government found a magic money tree? It might seem that way when the furlough scheme

and various other

COVID bailout measures have taken government debt to more than two trillion pounds.

But the markets don't seem able to work out whether this is the time to be bold or to be cautious.

The stock market has improved incredibly since its post-lockdown low.

So what should investors do? Where are we economically?

Is this really the time to get back into the market or the time to get out while the going is still

relatively good? And what does this new economic and financial environment mean for investors,

savers and the less well-off.

I'm Fraser Nelson, and to discuss this question, I'm joined by David Miles, who's an economist at Imperial

College London, also a formerly a member of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee.

I'm joined by Harriet Baldwin, a Conservative MP currently on the Treasury Select Committee,

and by Paul Aberley, who's chief executive of Charles Stanley.

So, Paul, let's start with you.

Isn't this the sort of the time where investors should just be keeping their money under the mattress

and not really investing it?

Because let's face it, there is no way of telling whether the stock market is about

to collapse once again. Well, I would say no because I think the social contract remains in place,

and this goes back to the financial crisis where the authorities reduce interest rates on

cash and bonds to zero, encouraging people to buy equities, which of course would stimulate the economy

and improve those equity returns. But the other side of the social contract was it was

...