Crosswords4 mins ago
Britain's In Better Shape Than Labour Can Admit.....
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Good old-fashioned common sense and reasoning, something that will be vehemently denied, no doubt.
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I was just reading this DTCw,
Despite Brexit, the UK has surged to claim its place as the world’s fourth-largest exporter, fuelled by a surge in services, moving up three places since 2021. Services exports reached a record high of £470 billion last year. Not quite so gloomy as many doomsayers predicted…........
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// After Tory MP Danny Kruger said his party faces "obliteration" because the UK is worse now than in 2010, a YouGov poll has suggested most Britons agree. //
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In a damning assessment of the Tories' record in government, 75% of people said things were either much worse (41%) or somewhat worse (34%). //
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The Resolution Foundation think-tank notes that average real earnings have fallen by 7 per cent since a year ago and predicts that earnings will take four or five years to recover to the levels of January 2022.
Yet if the forecasts are bad, it is the scene in the rear-view mirror that is truly horrifying. The British economy is in a generation-long slough of despond, a slow-burning economic catastrophe. Real household disposable income per capita has barely increased for 15 years.
This is not normal. Since 1948, this measure of spending power reliably increased in the UK, doubling every 30 years. It was about twice as high in 1978 as in 1948 and was in touching distance of doubling again by 2008, before the financial crisis intervened. Today, it’s back at those pre-crisis levels.
It’s worth lingering on this point because it is so extraordinary. Had the pre-crisis trend continued, the typical Brit would by now be 40 per cent richer. Instead, no progress has been made at all. //
That article is pay walled. But on this list from Wikipedia,
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it says the UK exports gold. This is hardly a manufactured or mined commodity, is it? Also, crude oil is near the top of the list. Why are we exporting crude when we're being told the price is increasing due to the war in Ukraine?
However, as good as those figures make out, there is no room for us plebs, the great unwashed, to benefit from. If things are that good, why are workers being told they can't have a pay rise? What? It's not that simple? It never is, is it?
“The Resolution Foundation think-tank notes that average real earnings have fallen by 7 per cent since a year ago…”
I’m surprised they have fallen by as little as that. You may have missed it, but the government printed £400bn of worthless money to pay people to sit at home eating Hobnobs for the best part of two years. That’s about 20% of the nation’s annual GDP. Incredible as it may seem, many of them liked the idea and now more than 20% of the working age population are not working. Some of them have genuine reasons for not doing so; but many more do not – they have simply decided that work is not for them.
Of those who have kindly condescended to resume working, many are skiving. This is particularly so in jobs where “Working” From Home" has become widespread. This is particularly evident among civil servants and local authority workers. I spent two hours yesterday getting in touch with HMRC to rectify a mistake they had made with my income tax code. Nobody should have to spend that amount of time contacting a government department.
It might be unfamiliar to some, but to increase earnings in real terms you have to increase productivity. This country’s productivity is languishing in the doldrums and it will continue to do so until people get off their backsides.
Had the Labour Party been in power during this time things would have been no better. They may have been slightly different in detail, but the overall effect would have been exactly the same or even worse. This is not a party political issue, it is the symptoms of a general malaise that seems to have settled among many of the population. The credit card bill for the £400bn has landed on the doormat and nobody seems willing to put in a bit of overtime to see it settled.
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