So where does this leave Brown?

davidke

What is interesting is the slowness of the media to react to getting the predictions wrong. They're all gob-smacked. BBC R5 is STILL running a programme about how the recession is now over but what does it feel like to ordinary people. This news is so serious it's awful. Everyone is shocked. Including the Tory Front Bench.

AngloWelshDragon

I don't know what it's like down south but living in the East Mids there has been precious little in the way of green shoots such that I have felt recent media reports of an upturn are either wishful thinking or a further sign of how detached the south east is from the realities facing the rest of us.

I was reading the other day that unemployment has risen 97% (yes 97%!) in neighbouring Staffordshire Moorlands in a year. These figure just confirm what I can see around me - we ain't out of the woods by a long shot.

So much for GB's new anti-tory slogan of "wrong on the recession, wrong on the recovery". If he uses it again all DC needs to say is "Urrr.. what recovery?!"

TrevorsDen

A kick in the nuts from the ONS.

Speculation is that QE will continue but as far as I can see all it does is give money to the banks so they can buy govt debt. It is not so much a lifeline for the economy as one for the govt.

Will someone contradict me? I would like to learn.

Merv does not like Gordo - so why does he do it?

john miller

I wish I could remember the paper that said we had come out of recession and growth was 0.2%. It was 3am this morning but it was either the Times or Telegraph.

God knows what you get when you've printed a fair few billion and you're still in recession? Depression?

John Adlington

And just what would his opponents do differently? They only know one MO, spend everyone's money until there isn't any.

Short the UK

Feel-sad factor.

welease woger

Good to see that all those billions of pounds did the trick.

chris as usual

The National Debt counter at the top right hand side of this page tells it all. It is obvious that we going to see tax rises. We now have an out of control economy.

This is going to need bravery and definition by Tory politicians. Look at the shouting over the Reform report, which proposes elimination of middle earner 'benefits'.

Fox in a box

AngloWelshDragon,

sat in my office in London I can see precious little recovery either, and the recent stability in the property market (in which I work) is as brittle as glass.

Perhaps unemployment is not off the scale in my little world (most of my peers are professionals of whatever sort) but my firm's turnover is down 20% and we have made redundancies for the first time in its 80 year history.

So, I can assure you, the view from the south east is not all rosy in the garden...

Best regards

Short theUK

Bonkers Brown must have the "feel-sad factor" this morning. He ramped up our economy on a property bubble, huge public spending and free flowing capital in the City. Would you employ the guy? Funny how Blair is now a jet setting banker, will he have a cap on his salary?

mac

"So where does this leave Brown?"

Same place as for the last 2, 12, 20+ years, that is believing in his own omnipotence, political acuity, and economic infallibility.

Not even a crushing electoral defeat will change this arrogant, mule-headed failure's self-delusion.

Long will England weep for what he has inflicted on this realm.

Victor Southern

Brown has no problem with this. He will say that he does not accept those figures and in any case the Tories would have just stood by and allowed us to lose a million jobs, have failing banks and a spiralling National Debt.

He will also point out that we were the only EU country to have the vision to reduce VAT - a brilliant step which the wicked Tories opposed.

DavidL

spot on Trevorsden. If it had not been for QE I do not believe that the Bank would have been able to sell the debt it has off-loaded this year at any price. The problem is this cannot continue. Next year the deficit will be even greater and QE will have to have stopped. I am almost starting to feel sorry for Goerge Osborne. Poisoned chalice is not even close.

pete-s

Well we all know where it leaves us, 'up SH*T creek without a paddle'.

Ian Walker

Good thing that Britain is best placed to weather the global downturn, eh Gordon?

Alfred T Mahan

If we're still in recession despite (i) growth in the public sector (ii) the collapse of sterling (iii) QE and (iv) recovery elsewhere in the world, God help us.

There is an almighty collapse on its way, whoever is in power, and Brown's game surely is to delay it at the cost of making it worse until the Conservatives are in power so they take some of the blame.

Norman dee

Anglo welsh dragon, you're not guilty of using percentages against us are you ? Brown keeps bleating on about the 60% increase in helicopters he has sent to Afghanistan. It was, I believe 2 helicopters, so if you start from a low base percentages can be really impressive on their own.

Frizby

Did i dream it or did Gordon REALLY say: "It is because of the actions THIS government has taken that Britain is best placed for recovery in this global economic downturn."

Can we have a question time for Gordon Brown like was put together for that BNP bloke? Imagine his jaw grinding on the table and his eyes flicking around room beneath a very flustered brow. Mandelson would have to be standing nearby with his bullwhip in order to make him talk.

Can't believe this charade of a government.

jon

The solutions are not complicated, stop civil service recruitment accept for frontline services, stop government advertising, put people on incapacity benefit on job seekers allowance, stop immigration, cut government grants to ngo's and fake charities and religous organisations, stop dfid payments to china and india, countries that have gdp growth, outsource NHS IT, etc. A lot of cuts can be made without anybody noticing.

jon

Means test all benefits and housing for existing tenants. That will put a bid under the private rental market stabilising mortgage backed securities.

Nicj Leaton

Doesn't it take 3 quarters of growth to end a recession?

AngloWelshDragon

Norman Dee. I am not guilty of using statistics against you. Follow this link for the unemployment rise in Staffordshire Moorlands. http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/news/Moorlands-unemployment-doubles-space-year/article-706275-detail/article.html

jon

Stop paying the Eu £60 billion a year until the EU accounts are audited. When the accounts are audited ask for a permanent 50% cut in contributions. Easy...This is just like the movie Dave where they balance the US defecit when the body double takes over as President!

Rob C

It was obvious from the beginning that it was as much about confidence as anything else. There is virtually no confidence in this government, so why would outlook change? Most people and businesses looking to invest or expand will wait for the incoming government. Thus the economy and many livelihoods are 'on hold' pending a general election. Brown wants to wait until the bitter end because he's waited years for the job and yet stands next to no chance of keeping it. He also knows he's responsible - if not for the recession, then for the scale of it's damage in the UK. Any sane minded leader, businessman etc would look back and question their past choices - could I have done better? What if I hadn't done that? etc etc. For all his faults, he is human and even he must start to see the reality of the situation? What he seems not to see is that the longer he waits, the longer we wait in a state of paralysis and thus more damning the historical judgment will be. He gambled everything on being able to say that he had turned the (US originated) recession around. Sadly for him that is far from the case and if the next quarter is red too then history will surely prove him to have exacerbated the problem by hanging on. The next quarter will see the end of the scrapage scheme, return of VAT to 17.5%, postal strike, rising fuel costs, a weakened pound and a looming General Election. Are we really going to expect growth?

Coney Weston

I don't need any official statistics to tell me we are still in deep doo doo - I'm standing up to my waist in it.

Nothing will get better in this country until after an election when, please God, the other lot get in.

logdon

According to Brown as recently as this week, his mechanisms pulled the world away from meltdown.

He lead the way, others followed. This with straight face and total self belief.

The man is a complete fruitcake as the figures now show.

Another one, across the Atlantic also bailed out, tarped and injected huge capital into his favoured few. Now the unions own much of car manufacturing.

Result? Rising unemployment. Huge deficits. Cap in hand grovelling to China for capital.

Both socialists. Both utter failures.

The US is waking up big style.

Us?

At least we've got Nick Griffin to take our minds off it.

Snowman

Finished, I suppose, but he looks cuddly, innocent in his ignorance, unlike Blair.

old fogey

I see that David Blanchflower--two different interviews this afternoon -- has become the BBC's new favourite economist. Now I wonder why that is. But also expect to hear much, much more of this man , curtesy of the BBC , from May 2010 onwards.

Naomi Muse

Sadly delusional and will remain so. That is the fate of this PM.

What it means for the rest of us is a very tough time deciding whether to buy or not to buy a property for under the stamp duty threshold before Christmas and/or buy big tellies or anything else that will go up after New Year with the return to the previous VAT rate.

Then comes the plummet down to possible stagnation for property under the current stamp duty threshold, manufactured goods and services which attract VAT, and the normal slow down that accompanies that time of year.

And then, the election!

And serious sorting out, if it can be done.

Simon too

And is that an Old Westminster tie he's sporting today?

[Gruesome visions of him snuggling up to Chris Huhne and crooning "I want to be like you-hoo-hoo..." in his hell-like.]

Percy

When McDoom was busy saving the world the Swiss government bailed out UBS, what's happened since... we'll the canny Swiss Government has sold its stake and made a healthy CH Franc 1.2 billion profit. We'll be lucky if we see £1.20 profit from Northern Rock.

2trueblue

Brown is an irrelevance right now. The UK has to get on with the job of pulling together, the question is who can help us get there? Lets hope we chose well.
The election is going to be a very messy and ugly event with the brown rats blaming everyone but themselves for the mess which they presided over.

Amadeus Plonquer

FYI: The Chinese government this morning announced that the Chinese economy 'only' grew by 8.9% last quarter.

So please stop saying that this is a 'global recession'. It isn't.

Moraymint

The Post A Comment function seems to be knackered on this blog? Just tried to pots and nothing happened?

logdon

Moraymint
October 24th, 2009 9:45am

I had the same problem on the BNP threads. I mailed Pete yet nothing.

Moraymint

Blogger/Moderators! Can you check the functioning of the site please? I've tried posting on 3 occasions and nothing happens ... but I'll bet this silly little message gets through LOL?!

TomTom

But why should Britain emerge from 'recession' ? Why do you think it is cyclical rather than secular ?

Britain is not a great exporter in global terms, it is a great importer. It is a Consumer Society which needs credit to consume above its earned income. It does this across the board and sustains economic growth by Consuming not Producing.

China and Japan and Taiwan and the EU manufacturers in Germany, France, Italy need British Consumers but import little from British domestic companies....The City recycles foreign surpluses into consumer credit so Britons can consume above their productive earnings over decades.

The fact that Britain has to borrow to fund deficits in both Government Spending, Consumer Debt, and Banking Balance Sheets does not suggest Consumption Groth is possible in future which, is Britain's main contribution to economic activity.

Far more likely is that Britain is settling into a realistic trend of economic activity commensurate with its huge indebtedness....and once the stimulus packages are spent through the system in say another 10 months, the bottom will become the trend line for coming decades.

The Past is another country fuelled by Debt that is not about to be repeated.