Downturn Britain

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

In his speech to the Tory Party Conference 2011 David Cameron finally told the people in the hall, the nation and the world at large what the ordinary person on the street has known for ages.

The Prime Minister has finally noticed that the country, that is to say, Britain, is still in a very deep recession, though to the PM it is a new one; a new recession that is, though it may also be a new one to him that the country is deep in the proverbial mass.

Britain, he said, is back – still, I and the rest of the people, say – in a recession and that the outlook is rather gloomy. Yikes! It took him how long to realize that?

Surprise? Not! We have known that all along and this shows, yet again, how far removed government is from the ordinary people that it took government, and especially the leadership, this long to realize it. With a Prime Minister like that. I am afraid to say, we are all in real trouble.

Fair dues, the Treasury was plundered by the previous Labour regime that ruled – misruled might be better a term – the country for 13 years. But that does not excuse the lack of understanding how the rest of us lives.

The PM then continued to say that we must all apply a “can do” attitude and wartime spirit to overcome this adversity.

I must say that, in a way, he does have a point as to the needed attitude but we all and especially government must come to the realization that this recession is a sign of the times and of a seriously broken economic system and model (see “Broken Economy”).

Britain has been in a downturn ever since the recession began with the credit crunch in 2008/2009 and while it came out a little it has now ended up in a double -dip recession that everyone dreaded but which Mervin King, Governor of the Bank of England, predicted and for which prediction he was castigated.

The truth hurts, as they say, and the truth is that we, as a country, are very much headed down the tube, and this tube is not the London Underground Railway of which I speak.

To our government big boys and girls all of this, and to the Prime Minister especially, seems to have come very much as a surprise and shock even. One can therefore but wonder on which planet or in which parallel universe they actually reside.

Scary, isn't it? And we allow them to run – or should that be ruin – the country. There's but one letter that makes the difference.

© 2011