Is that it? Can I open my eyes now without feeling too depressed? I just heard the news that the UK has officially left the recession.
This news will not cause me to go out and slash my way through what is left of the remaining High St sales with reckless abandon (I did that last month) but it does allow all to breathe a sigh of relief. After nearly 18 months of economic loss we have now recorded our highest upturn since March 2008.
But my question is why has it taken us so long? Germany and France came out of recession last summer and Japan and the USA emerged also in 2009 so why did the UK take this long?
During the eighteen months that we were in recession public borrowing increased to around £178 BILLION and exports slumped by 6%. The UK has always been a bigger exporter than importer but the gap is getting shorter. That is the key reason why it took us too long to recover.
Were not out of the woods yet, growth was only .01% but it is still a step in the right direction. With the forthcoming Election pencilled in for early May it looks like the outgoing government have put two fingers up at the likely replacements in the Conservatives.
Politics is a very unfair game, by the time the Tories do turn the country around no doubt the publics opinion would have swayed to a returning Labour. It’s been that way since the day I was born and I really would like to see this change at some stage in my life.
Why do we, the public, have to pay at the hands of those we elect?
