Consumers will feel the pinch of higher fuel, food and energy bills, rail fares andvalue added tax just as public spending cuts start to bite. Unemployment is likely to rise.The CBI employers’ group thinks first-quarter growth will slow to 0.2per cent, after 0.7 per cent in last year’s third quarter, before risingagain.
Businesses will view this potential instability nervously, especially if the euro crisisturns more dangerous. Little wonder the CBI’s Sir Richard Lambert warnsof “screaming news headlines: about the threat of a double-diprecession; about strains on the coalition government; about protests inthe streets”.
But remember, most economists expect investment and trade to pick up in the second half. The consensus is for 1.9 per centgrowth this year, after 1.7 per cent last. This is a time for strongnerves.
England expects
Does the fuss over England’s Ashes performance signal a resurgence of pridein Englishness? No more so, I think, than during the past couple ofdecades, when the St George’s flag has come more to the fore asScotland, Wales and Northern Ireland acquired self-government.
The English appear easy in their identity: once they saw themselves as moreBritish, but the English tended to see that anyway as a form ofEnglishness. England’s reaction to devolution has been phlegmatic.Pressure for an English parliament has been feeble. There is occasionalirritation at Scotland’s financial settlement, but little more thanthat.
The downside is English indifference to what happens elsewhere in the UK. Elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Irelandin May will get some attention, but largely in terms of what they meanfor the Westminster coalition.
No one is now articulating a case for Britishness, as Gordon Brown did while chancellor, when he equatedit to “a passion for liberty anchored in a sense of duty and anintrinsic commitment to fair play”. That was an inadequate description –any nation might have said the same – and aimed at preparing theEnglish to accept a Scottish prime minister. But if we neglect the bondsthat bind the UK, we should not be surprised if they start to fray.
Still rocking
One in five people alive today will live to see their 100th birthday, it issaid – prompting the disturbing thought that Jon Bon Jovi, 48, couldstill be the world’s top earner from concerts in 2063. Unless, ofcourse, a friendly asteroid strike renders all the rock dinosaursextinct by then.
Spiritual fear
Dog should not eat dog, I know, but this correction from The Guardian is myfavourite of the past year: “[In] our panel listing the expectedhighlights at Glastonbury this summer ... the group Frightened Rabbishould have been the Scottish band Frightened Rabbit.”
Immersed
Bruce Robinson, head of the Northern Ireland civil service, has become a knight commander of the most honourableorder of the bath – just as thousands of the province’s citizens wereunable to take one.
Published: January 3 2011 20:25 | Last updated: January 3 2011 20:25
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