The British government has hailed its COVID-19 job retention scheme as a “huge success” as it is due to close at the end of Thursday. The £70 billion ($94 billion) Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, commonly known as furlough, has supported 11.6 million UK workers over the past 18 months. On the last day of the scheme, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Simon Clarke said it was “a real milestone” in the UK’s journey out of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic. “It’s been a huge success in meaning this awful situation hasn’t cost millions of jobs which would have been the central estimate when this all began,” Clarke told Sky News. “We think 2 million fewer people are unemployed as a result of furlough having been in place than would have otherwise been the case.” “This is a moment when we can start to re-normalise the economy and ease …