Trade Deficit
This turned out to be bigger in January than anyone expected and the biggest for seventeen months. It may be the weather, but if not it is very bad news indeed. If there is no improvement in the next month for which figures will become due, it underscores the futility of trying to build economic recovery with the old model. It is here that Labour’s line of defence is thinnest.
By backing the Banks and caving into threats from the City that the overpaid gamblers would run away abroad unless they were given all they wanted, Labour has not only put proper recovery in jeopardy, but failed to tackle the serial imbalance of a medieval economy which sucks money up from those at the bottom of the pile and gives it to those at the top. Labour’s own disillusioned supporters strain to hear a message from other parties that help is coming but from the Tories they hear a vague and confusing babble.
Then today Ken Clarke said it in a single plain sentence.
‘We need to build a new economic model based on saving, investment and exports instead of the debt fuelled model of the last decade’
Well done Ken. This is what the Tory message needs to be about. Exports need industry. Industry needs workers. Investment creates jobs. Jobs empower neighbourhoods to better times. Tough times yes but with a bright light of hope for a better future. Voters will go for that. David needs to give you Osborne’s job. Come to think of it, the Tories would be walking it now if you were their Leader. Moreover there would be no Ashcroft crisis, no pact with the UUP and no cozying up to neo fascists in the European Parliament. Altogether much more wholesome.