As the latest figures are announced for our economy, it seems that many experts, have yet again got it wrong, and in fact, we haven’t recovered from the recession. 

Despite the triumphant news from France and Germany that they are now recovering from the harsh times of the crunch, the UK appears to still be in the thick of it, no matter how much we, as a public want to believe otherwise. 

In the words of Lib Dem’s Treasury spokesman Vince Cable, this news serves as “a cold blast of realism”.  And as we draw closer to the New Year when VAT is expected to revert back to 17.5% without having an effect on consumer spending, I ask why on earth so many mixed messages are being spun out to the public? 

So why do we know for sure we’re still in recession?  Well, the Office for National Statistics (ONS), confirmed last week that the UK economy contracted by 0.4% in the last 3 months; in complete contrast to the many predictions reported in the press that growth was a sure thing.   

This is the first time in
UK history since 1955 (when such figures were first recorded) that the gross domestic product (GDP) has contracted for six consecutive quarters.  For those of you who aren’t sure what GDP is, this is the term used to measure the total number of goods and services produced by our country. (Woeful at the moment!) 

Despite GDP being expected to grow from July to September at a rate of 0.2% (so the Darling Treasury minions so advised), we instead experienced a decline of 2.5%.  This then resulted in a 5.2% contraction of the economy, and whilst better than the previous 5.5% result of the previous three months, this is far from the rosy recovery we were all expecting. 

The rapacious Darling now tells us that  he never expected to see growth before the end of 2009 and that “Growth will come – I’m confident about that”, but my question is – when – when – when?   

As the Bank of England run out of the £175bn they pumped into their Quantative Easing programme (printing of money to buy bonds from banks and other companies to help stimulate the economy), I question how much more can be spent to secure our recovery? Why are not the banks’ lending at reasonable rates to our businesses?  And why, when our European counterparts are now seeing the recovery we so desperately await, why aren’t we? 

What has been missed and where has it gone so badly wrong for us brits? 

Come on Mr Darling, dare to expand?  I hope so but I doubt it. 

The quicker this government of in denial Brown and his side kick Darling depart from us the better we as a nation will be. 

 

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at 11:11 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.