UK only G7 country not to see growth this year.

“Well placed to weather the storm”

I’m just hoping that one day the Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his cronies in the Downing Street bunker will sit down and enjoy a good hearty meal of humble pie.

The OECD’s growth forecasts today say that Great Britain will be the only G7 country not to see growth this year, the forecast for the UK was downgraded whilst the OECD thinks that the rest of the world may be seeing an end to the recession. The OECD expects the UK economy to contract by 4.7 per cent in 2009 – even more than its last forecast of 4.3 per cent.

Phillip Hammond the Conservative Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury said today:

We will be the only major economy without any growth this year, and the only one for which prospects have got worse not better. Far from being well placed to weather the storm as Gordon Brown claimed, these figures show yet again that Britain is worse placed than our neighbours.

Unfortunately for Gordon Brown and the Labour Party, they will probably not be occupying 10 Downing Street when growth does eventually return to the UK. It should also be noted that whilst it is considered good politics to bash Brown over the state of the nation’s debt and his fiscal mismanagement over the past twelve years, the Conservatives will have one hell of a task on their hands when they return to government, as once again they will have to restructure and overhaul an economy with a huge budget deficit and eye watering levels of debt interest payments that will take generations to pay off.

To be fair to the OECD, sitting here in South Shields it does not feel as though the storm of recession has passed over yet, I see no signs unemployment figures being massively reduced, no signs of increased economic activity in King Street, and little in the way of inward investment in the private sector.

Green shoots anywhere, anyone?

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