IMF Uncertainty

The two most startling aspects of yesterday's IMF report seem to me to be the sharpness of the change to their November figures which after all were produced a mere two months ago and the implicit message in so far as the UK is concerned that it is the measures taken during the crisis which seem as much to blame as the equally disastrous policies in the ten years leading up to the crash. Writing in The Independent this morning Sean O'Grady states "The IMF's latest missive, however, is an entirely different matter. It means not that we'll just get richer less quickly than we thought, but that, as a nation, we will become poorer, faster than in any year since Clement Attlee was at Number 10" making that paper the first of the MSM to catch up with this blog which made a similar comparison some time ago. Given that the Conservative Party and Liberal Democrats supported the bungled actions over Northern Rock and the re-capitalisation of the banks that has left the Treasury bare and the Bank of England bereft of weapons to now fight the slump as it hits the real economy, to whom and where can England now turn? Until these facts similarly become a commonplace amongst the MSM and the chattering classes we will find no answer to that question and things can only continue to worsen. If things do continue to deteriorate for Britain at the same rate as determined by the IMF for the past two months then come June the 2009 contraction forecast by the IMF will be around 13 per cent for the full year. Incredibly a Government Treasury spokesman on TV yesterday (the one with the awkward chin) seemed to wish to stick by his bosses ludicrous projection in the pre-Budget statement that growth will be returning to the economy at that point. Almost as incredible as the buffoonish complacency of Ken Clarke now re-installed on the Tory front benches to remind each of us of the all-encompassing ghastliness of Britain's ruling classes.