The UK Economy: Things Can Only Get Tougher--(Blair implications)

1//The Independent, UK 29 September 2005 16:37

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article315801.ece



THE UK ECONOMY: THINGS CAN ONLY GET TOUGHER

Retail sales hit 22-year low. Growth at 12-year low. Inflation at nine-year high. Unemployment rising



By Philip Thornton, Economics Correspondent



Gordon Brown has suffered a body blow to his political reputation - just days after his confident speech to Labour conference - with the release of official figures showing the economy at its weakest level for 12 years.

Economic output showed an annual growth rate of 1.5 per cent during the summer, the lowest since the first quarter of 1993 when Britain, under John Major's Tory government, was emerging from recession.

The news, a revision to the Government's own figures yesterday, follows the Chancellor's admission that he would miss his forecast of growth of between 3 and 3.5 per cent this year. He had hinted during a visit to Washington for last week's International Monetary Fund meetings, that growth this year would be above 2 per cent but below 2.5 per cent.

The gloom was compounded by figures showing high street sales were falling at the fastest rate for at least two decades and a global study which found the UK competitiveness had fallen.

Inflation is also a worry, with the consumer price index for August rising to 2.4 per cent, the highest level for nine years. Any deterioration in the economy will seriously hamper Mr Brown's leadership ambitions in the light of Tony Blair's determination to serve as Prime Minister for three more years.


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Blair will be sure to use him as a scapegoat if necessary. So, Brown needs to start putting the blame where it belongs and right now.

Blair is going to set back Labour by decades before he's done. Unfortunately, too many in Labour drank the Blair Kool Aid and willingly abetted the crime.

has been held up as the model for France and Germany to follow.

but britain is the exemplar.

ah yes -- the free market liars are it again.

If we hadn't spent £billions on a pointless war?