Economic data is coming thick and fast. Sandwiched between last week’s poor unemployment data and Thursday’s forthcoming results for GDP in the first quarter of the year, public finance figures were published today. They show that George Osborne has dodged a bullet.
The latest public sector finances data, released today by the Office for National Statistics, make gloomy reading for George Osborne. Net borrowing in March 2013 was £15.1 billion, meaning he managed to reduce the deficit by a mere £0.3bn.
This Thursday we will find out whether or not the UK economy is in an unprecedented triple-dip recession. Economically, however, whether the country finds itself in a triple dip recession or not is largely symbolic – the chancellor’s austerity policies are failing and there is every chance they will go on failing unless he injects some stimulus into the economy.
Bill Gross, manager of the world’s largest bond fund for Pimco and one of the most widely followed and influential voices in the bond market, has attacked the UK’s and Eurozone’s austerity measures, saying that austerity is not the way to induce growth.
It was argued by Reinhart- Rogoff that high debt essentially meant that the state captured all resources, used them inefficiently, prevented the private sector using them and so curtailed growth at cost to everyone. There’s just one problem.
Whilst important not to read too much into one set of figures, it may now be the case that the weakness of the wider economy is catching up with the labour market.
Unemployment rose by 70,000 between December 2012 and February 2013 to 2.56 million, and the unemployment rate has risen to 7.9%, today’s labour market statistics reveal.
Writing in The Times yesterday (£), Nigel Farage claimed that if Margaret Thatcher was still leader of the Conservative Party there would be no need for Ukip. More specifically he said: “Had she still been in power in 1992, there would have been a referendum on [the Maastricht] treaty, and the need for UKIP would probably never have arisen.”
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has cut the UK’s growth forecast more than any other major economy and called for the government to spend more to stimulate growth.
A European Parliament vote on the future of the beleaguered Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), with implications for international climate change policy, failed to deliver a vital reform today when a majority of Conservative MEPs voted against the government.
