At PMQs today, Gordon Brown answered a question about G20 countries and the recession by saying:
“Spain is in the G20 now and is in recession.”
Quick as a flash Tory Bear posted an article demanding an apology from Brown after saying he “lied to the House”.
So who’s right? Our facts on growth were a bit old yesterday but we did say:
“Spain, who attend G20 meetings, are also still in recession.”
Spain is not a formal member, as TB noted, however they did attend the London and Washington summits (see pics) and would like to attend the G20 again as the EU’s rotating president in the first half of 2010.
43 Responses to “Spain, spin and the G20”
george
come on will, love the blog, but admit Gordon is either spinning one or is confused
geo
Claire Spencer
People seem to have come to an eminently reasonable conclusion on Twitter – Cameron deliberately didn’t say “we are the only major economy to emerge from recession” because he knew that we were not – but he phrased it cleverly and Gordon Brown walked into it. It’s really not a big deal, it’s a point of accuracy. Perhaps he should clarify that he was incorrect, but apologise?
I should add that, by definition, you can only spend out of a recession. How and who spends is up for debate, but if no-one spends, you’re in recession forever. Further, considering how much of our GDP is reliant on financial services, it was pretty much a given that we would be slower to emerge from recession than large, manufacturing-based economies – like Germany, for example. As Peter said, emerging at speed should not take priority over emerging properly. Now, if we fall back into recession after Q1 2010, saying that the measures undertaken haven’t worked may have some credence.
Anon E Mouse
Claire Spencer – Since you believe you have a means of spending your way out of recession and being an economy based on financial services it can take longer to recover (you may be right) why didn’t Gordon Brown know this?
The trouble with making grand statements is they can come back and bite you.
And all those people here who are arguing Spain is in the G20, or black is white just grow up.
Billy Blofeld
Claire Spencer,
Here is an easy to digest cartoon which explains how Gordon’s approach to spending is crashing the countries economy into the ground:
This is why the UK is the last G20 country out of the recession
Claire Spencer
All I suggest is that you moderate what has been an unnecessarily outraged example to a point of accuracy. I was very polite in my response – and I would go so far as to call it “grown up”.
Re: spending out of a recession, I am right: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/rogerbootle/4218744/This-recession-demands-that-we-employ-logic-and-spend-our-way-out-of-it.html
And yes, Gordon Brown seems to be aware of this. The prediction that we would come out of recession in Q3 was wrong, but it’s not as though Brown & Darling were alone in thinking that we would. It’s a difficult business, growth (or lack thereof) forecasting.