Below is Guido’s easy to understand summary of the third quarter GDP growth figures globally:
As well as being the lamest economy in the G7, we share recessionary woes with economic powerhouses like Romania. Gordon Brown’s epitaph will be that he didn’t abolish boom and bust, he didn’t save the world and he “led the way” only in his imagination. The British economy has paid the price for his delusions.
Sources : Eurostat and OECD
ONS numbers reveal that youth unemployment continues to rise, with the number of 16 to 24-year-olds up by 15,000 to 943,000, giving a rate of 19.8%, a record high.
Gordon says youth unemployment is his priority…
The coordinated attacks this week on George Osborne were pre-planned to coincide with the end of the recession as predicted by consensus economists. Except that the economy did not oblige. On Friday the ONS reported numbers that shocked Gordon Brown, who has long clung to the belief that a rising economy will save him. His curse prevailed.
Unlike in the rest of the recovering industrialised world, UK GDP fell by a shock 0.4 % last quarter, meaning the economy had now contracted for six successive quarters, the longest recession in British recorded history. Labour’s strategic plan, into which Guido understands Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson had input, was to use the reported official end of recession to claim victory in the battle against the crisis. On the back of that they would launch a ferocious attack on George Osborne’s response to the crisis.
There was no recovery reported. Op-eds had already been lined up in friendly papers, “lines to take” established, Bad Al Campbell himself lined up a letter in the FT focusing on Osborne’s shadow chancellor / campaign manager roles. Labour produced publicity material (above) and digital animations to be used in online campaigns. Mark Hanson, a backroom adviser on Labour’s online strategy, had placed a pre-written article on LabourList that he failed to revise to reflect the terrible Q3 GDP figures; “The campaign looks at what the real consequences would have been if George Osborne’s misjudgments had been enacted and led to a deeper, longer and more painful recession.”
That quote looks revealingly silly in the light of the figures showing Britain is suffering the deepest, longest and most painful recession ever recorded. Attack dogs Liam Byrne and Alastair Campbell nimbly recalibrated their attack lines. Instead of attacking Osborne as wrong on the recession, he was they claimed wrong on bailing out the banks (Byrne), wrong on political strategy (Campbell). With Gordon proved wrong on the recession by the numbers, with Britain shown to be worst placed of all the G7 nations, with our economy now smaller than Italy’s economy, the whole “Gordon was right on the recession” line is in tatters. Maybe they will try to resurrect it when the economy does finally bottom. Too late for Gordon, who by some accounts took the released figures very badly. At PMQs he stuck to the “I’m right, you are wrong, wrong, wrong” line even when the numbers showed differently.
With the new German government announcing a massive multi-billion growth package of tax cuts to boost the economy it will no longer be credible to paint the Tories as out of touch and isolated. The Tories have a surprise for Gordon, which Guido will spoil, footage of President Obama time and time again saying in recent months that you have to cut taxes to help people in a recession. With two of the industrialised world’s biggest economies – Germany and the United States – now implementing growth orientated policies, Gordon’s big government tax, borrow and spend will look out of kilter and isolated. His last hope of a political recovery strategy is now past its sell by date…
From Reuters:
This was much worse than analysts’ expectations of a 0.2 percent rise. Not a single analyst out of the 35 polled by Reuters before the data had expected a negative reading.
This is now the longest recession since records began. Despite the Prime Mentalist’s lies that Britain is “best placed to weather the global turbulence” it looks increasingly like Britain will be the last G7 country out of recession…
Data released today showed that public sector net borrowing rose to £14.8 billion in September, the highest ever level of borrowing on record for the month, increasing from £8.7 billion a year ago. Gordon’s big and bloated government is overspending by £493 million a day or £20 million an hour, 24 hours a day, every day. More money is going out on the costs of failure – welfare payments – than is coming in from income tax.
Gordon’s economics are a sham based on debt, government debt and consumer debt resulting from cheap credit. Remember prudence? The nation is now more indebted than ever before. Remember an end to boom and bust? This is the mother of all busts.
Thatcher was right: “The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
