Interviewed for BBC News, the Lib Dem deputy leader and shadow chancellor Vince Cable was asked if the UK is now in recession:
“It does look like it. The figures on manufacturing are particularly worrying. The fact that they are declining shows that we’ve got a serious real economic fall out. We do have a lot of recessionary trends coming into the economy.”
He said that whilst economic slowdown would inevitable lead to arise in unemployment, the impact had so far been cushioned by migrant workers leaving the country, and added that, “unemployment is not such a big issue as it was in the last recession.”
He added that: “the case by case approach [to the collapse of high-profile banks] had worked so far. Whatever countries do they have to do in a international context.”
Hat-tip: PoliticsHome.
6 Comments
Nah… go on, Vince, do you really think so?
With the LD commitment to simplify taxation, I now have this picture in my mind, of Vince, arriving at the (people’s) Treasury, dressed as the grim reaper, with a scythe, saying: “burdensome bureaucracy, your time is up”.
If we want to come out of this as a bright green economy, then we’re going to have to tax more of the bad stuff, and get rid of taxes that are just getting in the way.
My first slash would be at those administering the Climate Change Levy, as it gets replaced with a £10/tonne carbon tax, with the extra proceeds (around £4.5bn) going to a Climate Protection Dividend of around £100 for every adult. It would more than offset the £50/household total increase gas and elec. They’ve done it in BC, Canada, so why not here
“Nah… go on, Vince, do you really think so?”
Now, if I‘d said that …
Well, it was an open goal…
Vince does seem to have built a lot of his reputation by making Sybil Fawlty-esque statements of the bleedin’ obvious:
i) Britons have too much personal debt
ii) The housing market has a massive prices bubble
iii) And this
Not that I’m not saying he’s wrong on any of them.
Hywel
He was rather wide of the mark on the FTSE taking a tumble yesterday (which I suspect was meant to be another statement of the BO).
Then again, perhaps we shouldn’t look for the qualities of a successful City Trader in a Lib Dem shadow Chancellor.