This is the Telegraph’s report on the OECD’s conclusions about the UK economy…
OECD head: Britain’s economic recovery ‘a text book example’
George Osborne’s handling of the economic recovery has been “remarkable” and Britain must now stick to his plans and “finish the job”, the head of the OECD has said.
Angel Gurria, General Secretary of the international economic forecaster, congratulated George Osborne on the success of his policies as he hailed Britain as a “text book” example for other nations.
He said that while further cuts are needed, Britain has already done much of the “heavy lifting” and future austerity measures will not need to be as deep.
He said that Britain’s economy is now out-performing the US, adding that his main message to the Chancellor is “well done” and that Britain deserves a “pat on the back”
His comments represent a significant boost to the Conservatives, who have repeatedly warned that Labour could threaten Britain’s recovery.
Mr Gurria said the performance of the labour market had been “remarkable”, with three million jobs created over the past five years. Relative to the size of the UK population, the figures were even better than those recorded in the US over the period, he said.
“Even as unemployment has fallen, inflationary pressures have vanished … real wages are on the rise,” Mr Gurria told a press conference in the Treasury.
“We are predicting this economic expansion will continue this year and next. What a difference effective economic policies can make.”
He added that there are strong signals that wages are starting to rise, but warned that the economic recovery could be in jeopardy unless there are further cuts.
“My main message to you today is well done. Well done so far, Chancellor. But finish the job. Britain has a long term economic plan, but it needs to stick with it.
But he insisted the “biggest single challenge” for the UK – and much of the West – was to improve productivity in the labour force.
“Labour productivity has been weak, even compared to other countries which have also enjoyed solid job creation since 2010, such as Canada and the US,” Mr Gurria said.
“Reviving productivity is thus vital to maintain high growth and boost competitiveness. But it is also essential to boost real wages and purchasing power.”
The BBC however has a different priority…
OECD: Boosting UK productivity is key to prosperity
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says further progress in UK living standards depends on higher productivity.
Interesting that the BBC chooses to go first for ‘living standards’….the Labour Party narrative on the economy.
The BBC grudgingly mentions a few lines of slight praise for the government and economic progress but then starts to put the boot in with more criticism of productivity and living standards and finishes of with a curiously long attack, in a what is relatively short report considering the significance of it, on Public Private Partnerships …here the BBC ends on a very cynical and slyly critical note…
Another criticism is that governments use PPP to hide the extent of infrastructure spending, because it is not entered as normal government borrowing.
The OECD says the government should be more open with the public about this type of funding.
The BBC doesn’t bother telling you that PPPs and PFIs were massively expanded under Labour ….as the BBC told us in 2003:
What are Public Private Partnerships?
Public Private Partnerships are at the heart of the government’s attempts to revive Britain’s public services.
BBC News Online picks through the jargon to explain the bewildering variety of private sector involvement in the public sector.
You might compare the length of the article explaining PPPs and todays article on the OECD’s comments…a very short report today and whilst the Telegraph starts with the good it also reports the qualifications in full whilst the BBC misses out the extent of the praise and emphasises the downsides…. it looks very much like the BBC is trying to play down the praise and play up the negatives today.
Any BBC report on the economy always have a BUT inserted to downplay the good news.
BUT not when the economy is being governed by the policies of the Labour party.
As usual the Torygraph point of view writen by someone desparate to show that something good has come out of the soon to be , hopefully, previous government. The facts are these the OECD is not and never has been an unbiased organisation along with the Institute of Directors ,IMF, World bank and all the other US institutions. They blow hot and cold depending on how short term trends look. The big question really is; what is ‘the economy’ and who is benifiting from its growth or otherwise? Additionally,how has the government affected this? To say the economy is doing well is meaningless, well relative to what? how long has this been for ? is it a sustained and sustainable improvement and what are the motors of this growth. Sadly, the economy has not done very well even up until this point ,mainly because of ideological reasons on the part of the Government together with a miriad of international factors and the fact that money is controlled not by soveriegn states but by banks. If you dont grow you dont get tax revenue and flatlining the economy has not done anybody any favours.Greece is a prime example of this ,but so is Britain. International comparisons dont particularly bode well in recent history either, with many countries growing faster out of the crooked banking saga of 2008. The US grew faster because of good ol Keysian pump priming albeit hamstrung by the ignorant redneck republicans.
As a previous post has demonstrated, Gordon Brown had ,as acknowledged by Osbourne himself ,put the economy in a prestigious position prior to the 2008 collapse of the robber bankers . Indeed up until Osbournes first budget whn he cut public spending by the exact amount that Dave Hartnett HMRC let Vodone run away with in owed tax (6Billion)the economy was growing thanks to the previous Labour administration. Therafter, Osbourne sucessfully talked the economy down with constant references to Greece.
The big question is, are we on course for a sustained recovery?
I am open to suggestions but Osbourne has been the first to recognise that structural changes, for example the greater emphasis on manufacturing, hasn’t happened and without and increasing productivity which the BBC correctly identifies we will not begoing anywhere soon. The big elephant continues to be the debt obligations of the major players and the patent lack of changes to the banking industry. Amargedon is coming soon to a street near you.(Actually your street as it happens).
If the rednecks of this country get their way and we get another term of Conservative rule the repeat of further cuts will undermine the economy yet again,possibly terminally. If UKIP have a say we will be all dead within a decade because the City will undoubtedly be trounced by a European version and given we pussy around this offshore haven the crumbs will inevitably run out.
How has this affected the people in the Country. Well the only ones to feel richer are the rich. Considerable swathes of middle class professions no longer exist. Efficiency savings and outsourcing ,meaning job cuts,rehiring on lower salaries/wages ,internships etc have permanently reduced the life chances of many and in particular the young . Got a Phd ? There’s a call centre waiting for you! I think the only thing we can all hope for is another credit boom where some of us can max out and get the room of our dreams (no garden I’m afraid) in some Qatari highrise. Recovery,What recovery! Remember folks to doff your cap to your betters the next time you find yourself in the City of London. The casino is full and open for the only business in town, for a while at least!
DON’T FEED THE TROLL.
ManInLalaLland – do you actually believe anything of what you wrote there?
Surely not. No-one is that stupid (Gordon Brown excepted).
“The US grew faster because of good ol[d] Key[ne]sian pump priming albeit hamstrung by the ignorant redneck Republicans.”
“If the rednecks of this country get their way and we get another term of Conservative [sic] rule …”
Please define ‘redneck’. If you don’t like ‘rednecks’ (whoever they are, presumably White people who work outdoors on farms, etc, in the USA or rural England, and who get red necks from exposure to the sun, unlike office-, shop- or factory-workers) then is it ok for someone else not to like ‘darkies’ or ‘red heads’?
Also, what do you propose to do about the UK’s £ 1.5 trillion of debt, or, for that matter, the USA’s $ 25 trillion equivalent? In ‘austerity Britain’, we still spend £90+ billion more than we earn every year. And isn’t the present government a coalition or did I miss something after the 2010 Election?
Broken record, MOCB. Clearly the weakness of your argument was too obvious before, so you’ve decided to disguise it in a long-winded piece of waffle, worthy of Baron Kinnock. Let me summarise it for you;
‘We’re drowning in debt, so we need to borrow lots more.’
I’ll pass on that.
In your analysis of the falling-wages problem, the twenty-ton elephant in the room is open-door immigration, launched by Labour and eagerly promoted by the Tories. Would you propose we take back control of immigration?
“Dave Hartnett HMRC let Vodone run away with in owed tax (6Billion)”
You’re following your employer’s nasty habit of repeating an out-and-out lie. In the real world Vodaphone never owed the tax in the first place since CFC rules did not apply and thus no tax was payable.
I suspect – if I could be bothered to read it – that the rest of your overlong screed (as with your other contributions to this site) comprises mostly dull repetition of previous offerings from the occupants of the BBC canteen who visit here occasionally. Even so, if you expect your comments to be taken seriously it’s not good practice to cite proveable falsehoods as solid evidence for your case. Why don’t you simply continue to follow your employer’s example and just miss out the bits that don’t fit your and its narrative?
‘As a previous post has demonstrated, Gordon Brown had ,as acknowledged by Osbourne himself ,put the economy in a prestigious position prior to the 2008 collapse of the robber bankers’
From one of your fellow Marxist travellers, Mr Omnibus:
‘Here is a sample of Brown’s saucer-eyed adoration for financial whizzkids from his Mansion House speech in 2007. “I congratulate you on these remarkable achievements, an era that history will record as the beginning of a new golden age for the City of London … I believe it will be said of this age, the first decades of the 21st century, that out of the greatest restructuring of the global economy, perhaps even greater than the industrial revolution, a new world order was created.”
http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/285/gordon-brown-and-light-touch-regulation
And just by way of a bit of right wing balance:
Gordon Brown’s self congratulatory form of mea culpa on banks shows only that he still hasn’t fully grasped the lessons of the banking crisis, says Jeremy Warner.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeremy-warner/7591113/Gordon-Browns-shock-mea-culpa-on-banks-shows-hell-get-it-all-wrong-again.html
Now fuck off out into your garden and see how your money trees are doing, you moron.
Reply for MOCO:
“Amargedon coming to a street near you”.
The moron can’t even spell the word, clapham is obviously a UAF student activist, not enough studying and too much frothing at the mouth over ‘far right’ normal people who have had enough.
I’ll be happy to have Armageddon come to my street, I’d love to bash a lefty fasch…bring it on and let’s get some sanity back on to the street of the UK.
I’m guessing nobody ever told M.o.c.o. what an idiot he is. I’m afraid he’s probably a victim of Labour’s ‘everyone must have prizes’ approach.
I heard the BBC cover this on the Today programme. Emphasis almost totally on the negative.
Desperate campaigning for Labour and so, so effing obvious, just like the website article above.
You can tell when liebour are running scared of anything, usually anything that is of a positive leaning, they simply ignore it.
Like the bbc, immigration is totally off the record on ALL fronts, as now, is the improving economy. I watched PM questions today, where Ed mole-band (he’s finally come out from underground but is blind to everything around him) didn’t mention the hugely important economy once.
He talked about second jobs and wouldn’t let it go, he even tried to take the moral high ground on the matter but failed to mention Straw’s role in the grubby scandal, but he did drag up a past quote from Cameron stating that “there will be no MPs double jobbing under my watch”.
Later, on Daily Politics, Andrew Neil exposed this accusation as a complete lie, Cameron stated the comment whilst in Northern Ireland visiting their Assembly, the quote was aimed towards MP’s from NI who may be involved in the English version, nothing to do with actual ‘real life jobs’.
liebour’s rep on the show, Mary Creagh, suddenly did a very good impression of Natalie Bennett (who is now doing a very good impression of Ed mole-band) and couldn’t even stutter a reply, it’s so easy to shoot a lefty down it’s like shooting fish in a barrel…they are lying shithouse scum.
I couldn’t care less about MP’s double jobbing, in fact I’d rather they do that over claiming numerous expenses as long as everything is above board and is governed by stringent rules and as long as it has no adverse effect on their job as an MP. The bbc will go overboard on this because, as usual, because it smears the tories more than liebour.
They also did not pick up on Straw’s claim that he was punting for a job after he quit being an MP when he clearly said during the sham interview ” If I do a speech or something I charge £5000…err that is what I GET”.