This is probably not going to please those still desperate to decry the government, Brexit or Boris Johnson but the IMF have cut their global growth outlook and the UK is still on course to be the fastest-growing advanced economy in 2021!
That comes hot on the heels of news that the UK saw a record ÂŁ20 billion invested in British tech startups this year.
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But at what cost and who is paying the price?
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Surely that is because it started from a very low base? These statements might be true but they might not be as beneficial as they appear you have to look at what happened before. If you look at the OECD Economic outlook you can see how badly the UK performed leading up to this.
That’s the trouble with these reports they don’t show the whole picture and lead to a lot of tub thumping with misleading information.
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We have the USP, suck it up world. 
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I think that you’re missing the point Bruce.
We were repeatedly warned that in effect we would shrink and float off into mid-atlantic, quickly becomming a minor third-world economy.
That was very obviously just more lies.
BTW your “very low base” has been widely discussed by many competent people who widely seem to agree that a major causal factor for such a low figure is because the UK was the only country which included education in the GDP figures, which significantly negatively affected them.
There’s not really much point comparing figures by country if they are not all measured using exactly the same methods.
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There is a price to be pad for everything so you might make a very good point there but obviously the British public don’t much care about paying for things, and it is the public that decided the direction we would take.
They don’t seem to care about higher energy prices for example, preferring that option to extracting and using our own significant reserves of various fuels.
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There are certainly loads of jobs available…just about every shop locally has we are recruiting signs and I noticed at two traffic roundabouts yesterday banners from companies looking to recruit people …
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Definitely true, but if you pop in an ask how much a week’s pay will be, I expect you would be shocked by the low remuneration offered.
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YEs I’m sure you are right…thats why Boris is saying pay more…which in turn means we all will have pay more too of course…they are pushing for £15 per hour minimum wage hope pensioners get it too…ha!..well I can dream 
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There needs to be a rebalancing IMHO.
We’ve needed it for a long time & if you’re going to have a rebalancing, there’s no better opportunity than during a period of great change like we’re in already.
We don’t need car washes and manicurists on every street, we need lorry drivers and building trades.
We don’t need loads of coffee shops & baristas or a generation of young with pointless degrees, we need medical staff, dentists and apprentices for skilled trades.
We as a country need to get our priorities right and decide what we want.
That’s IMHO of course, because I know some people will disagree.
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[quote=“Zaphod, post:11, topic:85847”]
There needs to be a rebalancing IMHO.
We’ve needed it for a long time & if you’re going to have a rebalancing, there’s no better opportunity than during a period of great change like we’re in already.
We don’t need car washes and manicurists on every street, we need lorry drivers and building trades.
We don’t need loads of coffee shops & baristas or a generation of young with pointless degrees, we need medical staff, dentists and apprentices for skilled trades.
We as a country need to get our priorities right and decide what we want.
That’s IMHO of course, because I know some people will disagree.
[/quote]
Not me Zaphod, you’re spot on…
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That is true. Those who believe in capitalism I suppose must believe that wages and prices should be set by the market?
So if workers are in short supply, why haven’t wages gone up?
Employers seem affronted that now the supply of cheap Labour from the EU has dried up that people here aren’t queuing up to work for a pittance
The employers who pay more will attract workers first, and the low payers will either have to up their game to compete for staff or do without
I expect those struggling on Universal Credit who have just had a cut in their money care a lot about energy prices but feel powerless to do anything about it They can’t influence using our own fuel resources but are paying the price
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Yes, a market set by the indigenous or existing population prior to high levels of immigration by a foreign work force, not by those brought over who are willing to work for subsistence pay or in other words, sweet eff-all.
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Absolutely, 100%, spot on.
On our local BBC News yesterday evening was an item about a trade fair that was attached to Stratford-on-Avon’s annual Mop Fair (Scroll down to 18:00 12 Oct for the story). Many employers were there and they looked to be doing a roaring trade with new potential applicants lining up for a job.
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Big business isvgetting very worried over Johnsons tax hikes.
I quite agree with you there, it seems those who never seem to suffer are those who are the richest. They often are at the top of companies / organisations who just keep on upping the prices irrespective of the fact that it’s getting harder for some to afford the basics in life.
One instance of this came to my notice recently. For a new broadband and mobile provider I had to agree to the usual two-year contract. Within that it was stated that the monthly cost would rise by 3.9% in March each year PLUS whatever the increase in the cost of living index was. No option about this, other than to look elsewhere but they are probably all doing the same. So that means my outgoings on just that one service will have increased by 7.8%, maybe more if the cost of living index increased, which it obviously would. In effect this company are giving out price increases annually and the consumer has no say in this. Those who run this company are just increasing the costs of every customer and so it goes on and on and they are all doing the same!
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Point of order - the UC hasn’t been cut, the temporary relief has been stopped, that’s all. How would claimants have managed in the first place, before when this extra payment was given?
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That was my first thought too, then I realised that Universal Credit (UC) is also paid to those who are working but on low wages. With furlough ending too, which was for some a pay cut as there was a maximum paid, that may well have meant that losing that temporary relief of ÂŁ20 a week was leaving those entitled to UC with not enough to live on. Now with losing that ÂŁ20 a week plus the increase in energy costs, their lives will be even more difficult than was already the case.
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