Raise a glass to the UK economy this Boxing Day
THE NORTHERN & SHELL BUILDING NUMBER 10 LOWER THAMES STREET, LONDON EC3R 6EN Tel: 020 8612 7000 (outside UK: +44 20 8612 7000)
DOOM and gloom merchants have been running riot over the past few months, talking down the UK as we look forward to Brexit next year. I must be living in a different country since everything I see and hear points in a different direction: upwards.
Economically we’ve had a great year. Growth is up, unemployment down, wages are up but inflation is under control. What’s not to like? And there’s no apparent reason why this shouldn’t continue into next year. Raise your Boxing Day lunch glasses and toast good cheer.
In a parallel world these positive figures would be greeted with delight but it just doesn’t suit the narrative of some journalists, politicians and experts who want to see us punished for having the temerity to upset their liberal elite apple cart. The financial disaster that surely would follow our referendum vote to Leave has still not materialised.
Sure, the value of the pound fell but that was largely because the Bank of England Governor, Mark Carney, anticipating a meltdown that didn’t happen, needlessly cut already-low interest rates to their lowest point ever. Still, a benefit of that was to help our manufacturers export more goods.
The Beast from the East dented our economy a bit at the start of the year but that was more than made up for by a glorious summer that went on and on. For the first time in decades I sat outside restaurants sipping chilled white wine as though I were living in the South of France. retailers who had a poorer time than smaller traders, who reported growth of more than 13 per cent and 25 per cent online.
This is a powerful message that Britain is still busy. If only politicians and experts could all get their ducks in a row then business confidence would soar and investment leap. The problem is that our MPs of all parties are not up to the job of leading this country towards an optimistic destination.
They are so determined to prove they are right and we are wrong for believing in a positive Brexit that they would rather bring us all down by prolonging the current parliamentary crisis. They should listen to the Queen, who in her Christmas speech called for people of all opinions to treat each other with respect.
The fact is that we are an entrepreneurial, innovative and hard-working nation. We always have been. As I was enjoying our fabulous summer I visited the pretty village of Lavenham in the Suffolk countryside. At its heart is the church of St Peter and St John with an enormous square stone tower, one of the most striking in England.
The entire building certainly seems out of all proportion to the half-timbered community next to it. How did such a huge, lavishly decorated building end up in a small Suffolk village? The answer is that back in the 16th century little old Lavenham was packed with businesses making cloth that was exported all over Europe. Bolts of it were delivered to ports in Ipswich, Colchester and London and ended up in markets as far afield as the Baltic and Russia or the South of France and North Africa. Lavenham was internationally renowned for its brilliantly blue-dyed broadcloth – blue gold indeed.
I‘We are world beaters across the board’
F WOOL and cloth were Britain’s first layer of wealth, then we followed that up with an industrial revolution that churned out products we could sell all over the world. Business, invention and trade are in our blood and have been for centuries.
There is no reason at all why we should not carry on like this into future decades. There is a good reason why we are still in the top 10 of prosperous world nations even while other much bigger countries are enjoying their own growth spurts.
Big-vision entrepreneurs such as Sir James Dyson are already inventing new products to sell into rising markets in Asia. As a Brexiteer, all he wants from politicians is for them to help and not hinder him and other like-minded business people. Is it too much to ask?
It’s not the House of Commons nor the House of Lords that generate economic prosperity. And yet it is their shameful indecision over Brexit that is the only cause for gloom this Christmas. Will they really wreck our democracy by foolishly contemplating a second referendum?
We continue to be world beaters in sport, entertainment, education, business, innovation and trade. And yet it is our politicians who are proving to be the weak link. Instead of making us proud, their hopelessness is making us a global laughing stock.
I want it to be a national new year’s resolution that we will never speak again of the madeup Irish backstop issue. I want our politicians to get over their own self-importance and just get on with Brexit, deal or no deal.
Then they can get out of the way of the men and women in this country who do the real work of selling our fabulous nation to the rest of the world.