The Road less Travelled

The Road less travelled might make all the difference

The state of the economy has been triangulated by three news items at the start of the new year.

• The announcement that the UK monthly consumer debt has reached £1,250m in November, the highest level since the crash in 2008. This is explained by banks competing for credit business - payday loans with plastic- and the squeeze on purchasing power as wages have failed to keep pace with inflation.
• The collapse of the parcel delivery company City Links, bought for £1 just over a year ago by Better Capital, a private equity fund, whose owners declared bankruptcy as soon as the bumper income from Christmas deliveries was achieved. It has led to 2700 staff being laid off and not even told of their plight until the end of their Christmas eve delivery runs; and then
• The strange poster from the Tories inviting us to "stay on the road to a stronger economy".

Tory politicians seem to be honing their abuse of statistics even before people have got back to work in 2015. Let's be honest, we live in a country that is dominated by corporate greed, regressive taxation, massive erosion of public services and a general disregard for the common good.

The axis of the current government, the financial sector, corporate tax evaders and the establishment have a stranglehold on power that is irrefutable. But to claim that there is a stronger economy is a dodgy declaration as evidenced by a Telegraph article today that acknowledges that the UK has "the biggest deficit of any major industrialised economy in the world."

"The UK's balance of payments deficit reached £72.4bn last year, its highest ever cash amount, that’s 4.2% of GDP. It is calculated by subtracting the value of our imports from exports, and adding things like the flows of money we send abroad, and income earned by Brits on their foreign assets. Since the start of the recovery, our balance of payments deficit has actually grown from 1.7% of GDP in 2011." This was at the tail end of Alistair Darling's attempt to inject some Keynesian economics to foster recovery, since when George Osbourne's strategy of austerity has seen the deficit rise to over 4% in the most recent year.(see chart below) And how many of all those 'new jobs' are full time or have pensions, pay a living wage or have working conditions that should be the right of all citizens.

So who do you think you are kidding Mr Cameron! The economy is not strong and underinvestment in public services means there are not even cat's eyes or white centre lines on your neo liberal road to purgatory. Taking another road, the one less travelled, might make all the difference.