Actually it’s not often that you can believe a civil servant but this time I think you can. Looking at the economy there is no question that a modest recovery is already taking hold and this is all the more remarkable given the state that the European countries are in at present.
In the first quarter of the year Germany announced one of the largest contractions of their economy which is remarkable since they are, after all, the second biggest exporter in the world. What would they give for a lower valued Euro to help their ailing industries? I suppose if they did retain their own currency this would be even stronger than the Euro given their powerful economy (in normal times) so, for them, the Euro is almost devaluation.
Back to Britain, it appears that apart from the Orient and the USA we could have the next fastest economy in the world. I think we need to stop beating ourselves up and ‘naval gazing’ and listen to the echoes of our former illustrious Prime Minister, Churchill, when he declared ‘the darkest hour is just before dawn’.
This is an endorsement for the Coalitions policies and although the budget deficit is little changed for this year the trend is definitely downwards and is certainly 25% less than was left by the ‘goons’ in the last Labour administration where innumeracy was the order of the day.
Unemployment is moving in the right direction, inflation is, to a certain degree under control (with food and fuel prices assisting) and this is despite an unparalleled amount of Quantitative Easing that the scaremongers said would stoke inflation.
I think that The Chancellor was quite correct in extending the deficit reduction process that was surely not assisted by the lower tax revenues from less growth.
The weather may be gloomy but this is a little bit of sunny sky that we can cheer ourselves up with.