The perifidious French and Germans.
France and Germany have both respectively pulled out of recession, by a whopping 0.3%. Keeping in mind that these are preliminary figures, which could yet be revised in either direction, this can either prove everything or absolutely nothing.
Those predisposed (like myself) to further stimulus measures will note that both France and Germany have had far larger such packages than we have, although both also had more room for manoeuvre than we did in terms of borrowing and less personal debt to consider. Neither was as predisposed and reliant on the financial sector as we were, although there's certainly an argument that Germany is too reliant on its own manufacturing base, although it seems for now as if it's just that base which has helped it pull clear. Vince Cable is also pushing this argument.
Then there's the Conservatives (such as George Osborne) who are quite naturally crowing about how Gordon Brown was telling us all about how well placed we were and how we'd be one of the first out. This is equally correct, but it's also exactly what any politician was going to tell us, and indeed, if he'd been doom-mongering, telling us how it was likely to last years and that we'd be last out, he'd have been attacked for talking us down and spooking the financial markets. As has also been the theme throughout, the Tories have no real message on what we should be doing now, apart from "forcing" the banks to lend; indeed, they're still insistent on what we should be cutting now to bring the national debt down, which is about as insane a position as it's possible to reach.
It might yet turn out that the 0.8% contraction between April and June might not have been as bad as originally forecast, based as it was only on the figures up to May. Either way, all those old insults and jibes about the stagnating European economies while the "Anglo-Saxon" model of capitalism raced ahead no longer hit quite as hard.
Those predisposed (like myself) to further stimulus measures will note that both France and Germany have had far larger such packages than we have, although both also had more room for manoeuvre than we did in terms of borrowing and less personal debt to consider. Neither was as predisposed and reliant on the financial sector as we were, although there's certainly an argument that Germany is too reliant on its own manufacturing base, although it seems for now as if it's just that base which has helped it pull clear. Vince Cable is also pushing this argument.
Then there's the Conservatives (such as George Osborne) who are quite naturally crowing about how Gordon Brown was telling us all about how well placed we were and how we'd be one of the first out. This is equally correct, but it's also exactly what any politician was going to tell us, and indeed, if he'd been doom-mongering, telling us how it was likely to last years and that we'd be last out, he'd have been attacked for talking us down and spooking the financial markets. As has also been the theme throughout, the Tories have no real message on what we should be doing now, apart from "forcing" the banks to lend; indeed, they're still insistent on what we should be cutting now to bring the national debt down, which is about as insane a position as it's possible to reach.
It might yet turn out that the 0.8% contraction between April and June might not have been as bad as originally forecast, based as it was only on the figures up to May. Either way, all those old insults and jibes about the stagnating European economies while the "Anglo-Saxon" model of capitalism raced ahead no longer hit quite as hard.
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