Downing Street Says

Asked if the Prime Minister accepted that his message regarding the economy was not getting through to people and that the public no longer had faith in him, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister’s view was that these were difficult times for the global economy and that the UK could not be insulated from that. Therefore, it was entirely understandable that people in this country were concerned about the prospects for their own well-being.

The Prime Minister had addressed this point explicitly in his article in the News of the World on Sunday; it was completely understandable that people had concerns at this time. It was also important to remember that over the past 10 years the UK had out-performed the major European economies; we were the fastest growing country in the G7 last year and the IMF forecasted us to be the fastest growing economy in the G7 this year. Of course, at a time of global economic uncertainty like this, when people read about these issues in the newspapers and saw reports on the television everyday, it was understandable that people had concerns.

In the Prime Minister’s view we had set out a long term course; we were taking action to bring down inflation by the action we were taking on public sector pay, which had enabled the Bank of England to reduce interest rates. Because we had reduced Government debt as a proportion of GDP and because we had one of the lowest Government debt-GDP ratios of any major economy, we were able to stick to our public spending plans by increasing borrowing even at this difficult time. The Prime Minister was also taking action globally to try and restart the world trade talks but also to try and take action to improve confidence in global financial markets so we could inject more liquidity into global financial markets and we could create the conditions whereby when the Bank of England reduced interest rates they could be passed through to mortgage holders.

Asked if the Prime Minister thought that the economic crisis would get worse before it got better, the PMS replied that the Government’s views and the Government’s forecasts on the economy were set out in the Budget. The Treasury produced its forecasts twice a year and that represented the Government’s view; they would update their forecast in the Pre-Budget Report.

1 Comment »

I see removing a decent wage rise from the poorest paid, plus giving a nice Little hand out to the rich by removing the 10p tax rate, has helped Labour look like the Tories.

Brown has a problem he is looking more and more like John Major, while Thatcher looked like a hero, so Blair looks like Labours hero, we all know none of them were hero’s at all just looking to make a few million after they finished stuffing the sick the disabled and the poor.
Comment by Robert — 15 Apr 2008 on 9:15 am | Link

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» Monday, April 14, 2008

Economy

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