A bit of blatant anti-May politicking from the BBC as it targets her ‘strong and stable’ government…not once but twice…and no doubt many other times and place as well…it’s not a virtue to be strong and stable…the BBC trying to undermine a Tory election position?…

‘Strong and stable’ – Why politicians keep repeating themselves

As the general election approaches, MPs start to repeat themselves. Over and over again. In every interview. Why do they do it?

The final Prime Minister’s Questions before the general election had just finished when an exasperated Paul Flynn asked the Speaker whether a microchip had been planted into Tory MPs that makes them say the words “strong and stable” every 18 seconds.

The veteran Labour MP had a point – the Conservatives’ slogan had just been used 16 times, including a hat-trick of mentions inside a single question by backbencher Michael Fabricant.

Ah…a Labour MP has a point does he?  Hmmm…good of the BBC to expand upon it for him in the middle of an election campaign.

The BBC is obsessed….it doesn’t like its own bias being stopwatched and detailed but the Tories saying ‘strong and stable’…well…a very important issue for the BBC to spend so much time upon…

• 25 times in the Commons in 10 days
• 16 times during PMQs on 26 April
• 12 times in one speech by Theresa May

And look…a strong leader is a bad leader the BBC tells us in a second bite of the crab apple.….the BBC asks a man who wrote a book, Archie Brown, author of The Myth of the Strong Leader, who is clearly not going to give you any other answer than ‘strong leadership’ is bad.

And of course it’s back to May’s ‘strong and stable’ as the reference point….

The soundbites are constantly repeated. “Strong leader”. “Strong and stable leadership”. “Strong and stable government”. But what do they mean?

At first glance the terms are not contentious. It is easy to get agreement that “what we need is a strong leader”, and few would argue that “what we need is a weak leader”.

Yet, there is a lot to be said against an over-mighty leader.

The BBC tried once before to paint May as an isolated authoritarian who talked to no one and was running a shambles of a government that didn’t know what it wanted to get from negotiations and had no plans in place for Brexit during the run up to the vote on Article 50…that was clearly nonsense as the government set out its comprehensive plans shortly after the BBC claims.

The article continues to tell us that Labour’s Attlee was not a strong leader but, LOL, led a strong and stable government…contrast that, the BBC says, with Thatcher who was a disaster….and the future?

Theresa May took personalisation of power a rhetorical step further in the House of Commons this week when she repeatedly said that “a vote for me and the Conservative candidate” in the 8 June election will lead to strong and stable leadership and a better Brexit outcome.

Strong leaders need not apply…because they will fail…

The greatly respected political scientist and TV election analyst Anthony King, who died in January, observed last year that the best-governed countries “owe their good government in large part to the fact that their political institutions and political culture obviate the need for strong leaders”.

He concluded: “A successful liberal democracy is liable to be one that is effectively “leader-proofed”, one in which… it is made difficult for a strong leader to acquire and wield power and in which the government does not rely on strong leaders for its long-term success”.

He was surely right.

There is a pop at Corbyn..or is it supposed to prop him up, telling us he is a ‘strong leader’ like May when the reality is that he is more weak and irresolute on so many issues…and this article completely forgets that his power comes not from his MPs but Labour members…and so he obviously does appeal to the electorate…those that like him anyway….and if he ever did get the keys to No10 I’m pretty sure many of those MPs would also see him in a new light all of a sudden….as the jobs are being handed out…they all love a winner…it also forgets that he isn’t a strong and stable leader…anything but…he fails to lead and muddles on through regardless…..

Ed Miliband, as Labour leader, persuaded the parliamentary Labour party to give up electing the shadow cabinet and accord him as leader of the opposition the power to appoint them…[once Corbyn] inherited those powers, he refused to return them to Labour MPs, even when they voted overwhelmingly last year to take them back.

Although Mr Corbyn would then have less power individually, a leadership chosen by the parliamentary party would be stronger in its political composition and, arguably, in its appeal to the electorate.

Tim Farron has claimed, to much incredularity[BBC aside…no reaction from Marr], that he is a ‘bit of a Eurosceptic’….because in 2008 he resigned from the LibDem frontbench when Clegg demanded they abstain from voting on a referendum on the EU Lisbon Treaty…the BBC puts it up in lights…

Tim Farron says ‘I’m a bit of a Eurosceptic’

…not sure why as the main thing of any import he said was that the LibDems would not form a coalition with any other party….[interesting that he mentions his new found Euroscepticism, why now?….could it be because the subject arose 5 days ago on someone’s Twitter feed….guess Tim himself forgot that he was a Eurosceptic and had to be reminded….1:51 AM – 24 Apr 2017]

He may have resigned but not because he opposed the Lisbon Treaty...he voted relentlessly for it...the only vote he opposed was an amendment that would give parliament a say on EU decisions…so much for his cheerleading for British democracy…..whilst of course voting yes to increase the EU Parliament’s power….

• On 21 Jan 2008: Tim Farron was absent for a vote on Lisbon Treaty — Second Reading Show full debate
• On 27 Feb 2008: Tim Farron was absent for a vote on Lisbon Treaty — Enshrine the Lisbon Treaty into UK law Show full debate
• On 3 Mar 2008: Tim Farron voted yes on Lisbon Treaty — Accept the changes of terminology in the Lisbon Treaty Show full debate
• On 3 Mar 2008: Tim Farron voted yes on Lisbon Treaty — Increase of powers of European Parliament Show full debate
• On 4 Mar 2008: Tim Farron voted no on Lisbon Treaty — Clause on ‘parliamentary control of decisions’ to remain in the Bill Show full debate
• On 5 Mar 2008: Tim Farron voted yes on Lisbon Treaty — Clause on ‘Commencement’ of the Bill should remain in the Bill
• On 11 Mar 2008: Tim Farron voted yes on Lisbon Treaty — Third Reading

Trouble is Farron didn’t resign in order to oppose the EU but because he had promised his constituency that they could have a vote, he makes absolutely no mention of his own views on the EU here….

Note how hard-core Remainder Farron, much as he ‘respects’ the people’s vote on Brexit but ignores it, also respected Clegg’s leadership…and totally ignored it.

And just because you vote to have a referendum doesn’t show you are a Eurosceptic….Clegg at the time wanted an in/out referendum…and was a committed Europhile as his leaflets made out in 2008…the LibDems would campaign to remain in the EU….

And here is Farron indeed telling us that he wants another referendum…..in order that the British people can vote to stop  Brexit…the LibDems are the vehicle to provide that ‘democracy’ to take place…much like Erdogan’s democracy bus…you get off it when you get to the destination you want…so keep voting until we agree to stay in the EU and then…no more referendums…cheers Tim…..

It wouldn’t actually be a vote on the terms of any deal but a rerun of the in/out referendum…reject the deal and we stay in the EU…no renegotiation of the deal to improve it….

According to an amendment tabled by Liberal Democrat MPs including Tim Farron, a vote should be held with the question on the ballot paper asking voters if they support the new proposed agreement with the EU, or if they want the UK to remain a member of the EU.

Farron keeps insisting that the 2016 referendum didn’t give May the authority to take us out of the Single Market and that the People voted for ‘a blank sheet of paper’...and yet that’s just not true…they voted to come out of the EU…that was the question on the ballot paper…do you want to stay in the EU or leave?  They voted to leave…and the ‘EU’ means all the EU…Farron is busily picking the bits he likes and insisting that the ‘People’ didn’t vote to ‘leave’ those bits.  Not only a remarkable ability to read peoples’ minds but also a remarkable ability to torture logic….by Farron’s logic the vote to leave was not a vote to leave at all…because people did not have a list, a list that would be extraordinarily long, that spelt out every law, regulation, treaty and rule that brought the EU to life and made it real….we, by his logic, must explicitly approve or not every single EU law, infrastructure and institution if we want to vote on the EU….we can cherry pick our membership of the EU according to Farron, though the EU disagrees…they say if you’re out you’re out.  Farron also ignores the very inconvenient fact that it was made quite clear by both sides in the referendum that a vote to leave meant leaving the Single Market.

More Farron logic…a massive vote for May would not be democratic.

More Farron logic as he accuses Andrew Neil of guessing what voters want having confidently told us that he himself knows….

Farron is talking out of his backside and spinning us a right old tale….but then again, as Cameron points out, the LibDems are renowned for dirty campaigning…..[why is Farron wrong in the video below?…check the recent post on the lies and hypocrisy of politicians who called Zac Goldsmith a racist Islamophobe]….

Ist May and a whole new month of BIAS from the BBC to highlight! The floor is yours!!!

“You can either wage Jihad by the tongue and by the mouth – that is ideological jihad – or by the hand and the sword. Those are the official categories of jihad…..And jihad by the hand and the sword can be done here in France [& the UK] with cars and knives.”  BBC

This is a post just to remind ourselves, and to inform the next post, about what kind of person Sadiq Khan is and the lies, hypocrisy and appeasement of Muslim extremism, the playing of the race card, that someone, Yvette Cooper, who might very well be the next leader of the Labour Party, used to deal with those she opposed……and what all this means for Western civilisation, no less.

Sadiq Khan had close links to some extreme-minded people and once said that Muslims who work with the government to tackle Muslim terrorism were ‘Uncle Toms’.  Yvette Cooper criticised Corbyn during her bid for the Labour leadership for his links to extremists saying it gave legitimacy to such people…she then proceeded to accuse Zac Goldsmith of racism when he said the same thing about Khan associating in public with extremists.

Here is Cooper in the Telegraph laying into Corbyn….

She is not prepared to stay silent, she says, while Mr Corbyn sends out an ambiguous message about Labour’s stance towards extremism.

Ms Cooper is particularly horrified at the stance he took in support of the hate preacher, Raed Salah. Britain tried to deport him for “virulent anti-Semitism” while Mr Corbyn described him as an “honoured citizen” who should be allowed to stay.

“I think we have to be very firm about the fact that those who are involved in terrorism, or extremism or anti-Semitic abuse, you shouldn’t be legitimising them, or inviting them to parliament, or those kinds of things. The Labour Party should not be associated with Salah in any way.”

All change though…..Here she is attacking Tory Zac Goldsmith for using a tactic he could very well have copied from her….

Zac Goldsmith’s dog-whistle is becoming a racist scream

Anyone who thought the nasty party was dead has been proved wrong by Zac Goldsmith’s desperate campaign for the London Mayoralty.

Rather than try to persuade Londoners with a positive vision, the Goldsmith campaign is increasingly resorting to disgraceful, divisive tactics as the polls show the Tories falling further behind.

What started as a subtle dog-whistle is becoming a full blown racist scream.

Michael Fallon has attacked Sadiq as a “Labour lackey” who supports extremists. And in the last few days we’ve seen Michael Gove, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson each try to link Sadiq in people’s minds with Islamist extremism in different and deeply dodgy ways.

It’s the campaigning equivalent of pointing and shouting ‘don’t vote for him, he’s a Muslim’ – a nasty approach straight from the Lynton Crosby playbook.

Plenty of sensible Tories have been appalled. Baroness Warsi tweeted: “If Sadiq Khan isn’t an acceptable enough Muslim 2 stand for London mayor, which Muslim is?”

Shazia Awan, a former Conservative Parliamentary candidate described the Tory campaign as “‘divisive’, ‘colonial’, ‘sectarian’ and the return of the ‘nasty party”.

Hang on though…..Goldsmith didn’t actually attack Khan for being ‘Muslim’, he attacked him for associating, again and again and again, with extremist Muslims….it was Khan himself who campaigned ‘as a Muslim’…and indeed tried to do so as the anti-extremist candidate…so Goldsmith was right to tackle the hypocrisy and lack of judgement of a man who said he was against extremism and yet who shared the same platform with extremists again and again…..and who called ‘moderate Muslims’ Uncle Toms……so, if anyone, who was the divisive, racist hate monger using ‘fear and innuendo’ to campaign?

Hey @ZacGoldsmith. There’s no need to keep pointing at me & shouting ‘he’s a Muslim’. I put it on my own leaflets. pic.twitter.com/EGeRXlPWAa

— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) April 11, 2016

And look….guess who else defends Khan….the BBC’s James O’Brien on his LBC radio show….O’Brien dismisses the criticism of Khan’s use of the phrase as a campaign tactic by the Right…..

And who else doesn’t get it as he tries a bit of moral grandstanding but is on slippery ground?

Trump did a wide-ranging interview with the Associated Press which discussed his first 100 days as President….it was quite clear, lucid and coherent, no doubt as to what he was saying…it all made sense though admittedly the 9/11 comment was always going to be a hostage to fortune.  However there were several occasions when the interview has been marked ‘unintelligible’ where whatever Trump has said cannot be made out or put into words.  The anti-Trump brigade has leapt upon this and almost totally ignored the actual content of the interview whilst raving against a President who is ‘unintelligible’…apparently….well ignore is the wrong word, they address what he says but not in any reasoned or sensible way…it’s merely the usual liberal Trump trauma on show as they blast absolutely anything he says as ‘bonkers’ or lies.

If you actually read the transcript you can see that where it marks something as ‘unintelligible’ it is actually more often than not where someone would naturally pause in a sentence and perhaps make a transitional noise….er’s and umms or where they are trying to think of a suitable word…as they think and move on to a different thought.

It’s not as if no President before has not been so ‘inflicted’ with this terrible problem…

Obama: I think Utah has a pretty good claim. They’re undefeated. And Florida and Oklahoma both are well … (unintelligible).

Obama: Right. Well, by the time that G-20 meeting takes place, we, I believe, will have presented our approach to financial regulation. I think some international coordination has to be done. But right now, we just have to take care … (unintelligible) .

Obama: Well … (unintelligible) … if you look — as you might imagine

Wasn’t it an absolute nightmare that the US had a President for 8 years who was ‘unintelligible’…why, why, why?

Trump’s reached his century and of course they all hate him for it.  Why hasn’t he been assassinated yet?

The BBC has been filling the airwaves with a relentless barrage of anti-Trump sneering and mockery, what’s new?, on Friday we had Malcolm Rifkind deriding Trump and telling us how dangerous he is to the world whilst going on to boast about how wonderful Malcolm Rifkind is because he stopped the Americans interfering in the Balkans…yes what a hero Rifkind is, in his own head…even the Guardian agrees…or not…

The BBC’s News Quiz mocked Ivanka Trump for being booed and jeered at a G20 women’s summit in Berlin as she defended her father’s attitude towards women, the same claim was made on Any Questions…..and on BBC News….

Ivanka Trump booed at women’s summit

Trouble is that’s completely untrue…there may have been a few groans but no booing or jeering as the BBC suggests….which is odd really as the BBC has put a video out on Youtube which tells the truth…..

Groans at Ivanka at G20 women’s summit – BBC News

So on the mainstream BBC news and on its ‘comedy’ shows there is a narrative that there was a loud, angry and indignant reaction to Ivanka’s comments when that is just not true….it was merely a few mutterings from the crowd.

BBC spreading fake news just because it’s Trump?  Of course they are.  Why change a habit so ingrained it’s absolutely natural to them.

From Bild….

There was no booing of Ivanka

At the “Women20 Summit”, there was in fact a moment during the panel discussion when the audience began murmuring. Panel moderator Miriam Meckel asked Ivanka whether she was speaking as the First Lady – in Melania Trump’s place – or as the new advisor to the President. Ivanka replied in a disarmingly honest way:  “This role is quite new to me, it has been little under 100 days.” She said that she would be happy to bring what she learned here home with her and that she would discuss it with her father.

She also said: “I am very proud of my father. Long before he came into the presidency, he has been a tremendous champion of supporting families and enabling them to thrive.”

At this point, there was some unrest in the audience. There was no booing or heckling at all, however.

Despite Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, suggesting the NHS is Labour’s “comfort zone” at a speech in London on Saturday, 43 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement: “Theresa May and the Conservatives would do a better job than Jeremy Corbyn and Labour managing the NHS this winter”. Around 30 per cent agreed that Mr Corbyn and Labour would do a better job than the Tories, while 26 per cent responded “don’t know”.

 

Apparently the Tories are now more trusted on the NHS than Labour.  Perhaps that’s why the BBC is blitzing us with so many tales of crisis in the NHS just now…and hardly blinking as ‘Big Pharma’ tried to blackmail the government into spending more on its drugs demanding £20 billion be pumped into the NHS or else….Normally ‘Big Pharma’ is the evil face of capitalism writ large…not now, during an election, as it demands more money for the NHS.

The Tories introduced the Cancer Drug Fund in 2010 to provide drugs that were not considered to be the most cost effective by NICE to patients.  Today the BBC has been bombarding us with loud criticism of the fund from the Prof. Richard Sullivan who tells us that the fund is an expensive and maybe even dangerous waste of time…

The Cancer Drugs Fund in England was a “huge waste of money” and may have caused patients to suffer unnecessarily from the side effects of the drugs, according to UK researchers.

The fund ran from 2010 to 2016, costing £1.27bn, following an election promise made by the Conservatives to pay for cancer drugs the NHS was not funding.

The choice of words by Sullivan indicates this attack on the Tory policy is highly political….

‘A huge waste of money’…’patients suffering unnecessarily.

“policy on the hoof” because of the way it was announced.

“Populism doesn’t work when you are dealing with complex areas of policy like this. When it was launched it was not monitored properly. It was politically and intellectually lazy.”

‘Populism’?  Hmmm…it has been the BBC itself that has helped drive politicians to take such measures.  The BBC has relentlessly given a platform to campaigners who demand drugs that NICE would not approve and fund….the BBC has provided massive publicity and backing for these campaigns…and undoubtedly half those radio awards that Victoria Derbyshire got, who specialised in these sort of stories, were for such reports.  The BBC has driven that ‘populism’.

You might also ask why this has suddenly made the news headlines….because this study by Sullivan was released in March this year….and only now making BBC headlines as an election is under way……any chance this is a bit of flagrant opportunism by Sullivan who knows that the BBC will lap this stuff up and give it an enormous profile?…Whatever you think of the CDF the criticism here is politically motivated, certainly by the BBC….

Do patient access schemes for high-cost cancer drugs deliver value to society?—lessons from the NHS Cancer Drugs Fund

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUYbxLri_Og

Boris is in the BBC’s bad books, as usual…he’s insulted and demeaned poor old mugwump Corbyn…have to say his humorous description was perfectly apt describing Corbyn’s naive and gormless operating style to a T.  The BBC of course would never stoop to such mockery…..despite having spent years abusing Boris, and indeed once calling him a ‘nasty piece of work’…not much humour there….and of course spending the last two years deriding, mocking and insulting Trump…the sneering is of course ongoing.

Emma Barnett told us Boris was a ‘joke’ for saying such a terribly demeaning thing about Corbyn….not herself seeing the hypocrisy in her claims as she uses a personal insult to criticise him.

Then there’s UKIP and their ban on Burkas….the BBC can’t help reporting, again and again, that ‘people think they are racist, Islamophobic, nazis and BNP-like’…..never mind Merkel has just announced something similar…and of course France has its own ban….

Germany agrees to ban female civil servants, judges and soldiers from wearing the full-face burka at work

A draft law to ban German civil servants, judges and soldiers from wearing full-face burkas at work has been agreed by the country’s parliament.

The move comes after Chancellor Angela Merkel called in December for a ban on full-face Muslim veils ‘wherever legally possible’.

The BBC has also spent the day mocking Trump for his ‘achievements’ in his first 100 days in power…never once admitting that he had 95% of the media against him as well as the Democrats and much of his own party, never mind a good portion of the intelligence and security agencies and Democratically aligned Establishment…including politically motivated judges acting outside their powers.  Personally I think Trump has done pretty well and certainly put America back on the map internationally in so many respects.

And what did Obama achieve?  Obamacare…..and that was forced through by Democrat shenannigans…To quote Democrat Rep. Alcee Hastings of the House Rules Committee during the bill process: “We’re making up the rules as we go along.”…The American system of governance was shafted.

How Obamacare Became Law

It was the trickiest legislative move ever accomplished in the Congress.  Here’s my best play-by-play:

Obamacare was signed into law in March 2010.  If you recall, Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic majority in the House of Representatives was unable to pass their version of a healthcare law. Because all revenue bills have to originate in the House, the Senate found a bill that met those qualifications: HR3590, a military housing bill. They essentially stripped the bill of its original language and turned it into the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), aka Obamacare.

The Senate at that time had 60 Democrats, just enough to pass Obamacare.  However after the bill passed the Senate, Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy died.  In his place, Massachusetts elected Republican Scott Brown.  That meant that if the House made any changes to the bill the Senate wouldn’t have the necessary number of votes to pass the amended bill (because they knew no Republicans would vote for Obamacare).  So Senate Leader Harry Reid cut a deal with Pelosi: the House would pass the Senate bill without any changes if the Senate agreed to pass a separate bill by the House that made changes to the Senate version of Obamacare.  This second bill was called the Reconciliation Act of 2010. So the House passed PPACA, the Senate bill, as well as their Reconciliation Act. At this point PPACA was ready for the President to sign, but the Senate still needed to pass the Reconciliation Act from the House.

Confused?

We all were.

And it got worse.

Remember that the Senate only had 59 votes to pass the Reconciliation Act since Republican Scott Brown replaced Democrat Ted Kennedy.  Therefore in order to pass the Act Senate Democrats decided to change the rules.  They declared that they could use the “Reconciliation Rule (this is a different “reconciliation” than the House bill).  This rule was only supposed to be used for budget item approvals so that such items could be passed with only 51 votes in the Senate, not the usual 60.  Reconciliation was never intended to be used for legislation of the magnitude of Obamacare. But that didn’t stop them.

So both of the “Acts” were able to pass both houses of Congress and sent to President Obama for his signature without a single Republican vote in favor of the legislation.  The American system of governance was shafted.  To quote Democrat Rep. Alcee Hastings of the House Rules Committee during the bill process: “We’re making up the rules as we go along.”

The BBC is up to its usual tricks doubling up on ‘disaster’.  The GDP figures were out yesterday and showed a slight slow down….this ‘disaster’ the BBC has been trumpeting all day in every bulletin is because of inflation, due to the pound falling, due to Brexit.  They topped off the narrative, just in case you hadn’t got the message, with a clip of Sturgeon telling us we’re all doomed, doomed she tells you!!  Not at all sure why the BBC chose someone who has such a vested interest in stirring up trouble to comment on something that needs sensible, expert comment rather than shrill, highly political ranting other than they could guarantee she would provide the necessary anti-Brexit angry bombast.

When the news is good you don’t hear a peep out of the BBC let alone a day long blaring prophecy of coming apocalypse that is the usual BBC soundtrack to the slightest bad news.

Britain is still doing better than most countries and what the BBC bulletins weren’t letting on is that the vast majority of inflation [over two thirds] is due to international commodities rising and the price of oil increasing due to OPEC pumping out more as they failed to destroy the US fracking industry in the economic war the Muslim oil countries launched against the US.

The BBC’s reluctance to admit that is strange as they said this about the cause of Europe’s rising inflation in March…

Eurozone inflation has risen above the European Central Bank’s (ECB) target rate for the first time in four years.

The increase in inflation is largely due to rising energy prices, and analysts do not expect the ECB to alter its current stimulus programme.

However Britain’s inflation is due to Brexit, the fall in GDP due to shoppers ‘tightening their belts’ as Brexit hits them in the bank balance…they are feeling the pinch as they also feel the squeeze….

UK growth slows as shoppers tighten belts

Consumers have been feeling the pinch since the beginning of 2017, with inflation sitting at its joint highest level for more than three years at 2.3% in March.

The squeeze on household spending power has led to weaker retail sales, which recorded their biggest fall for seven years in the three months to March.

The BBC’s interpretation, that this is ‘belt tightening’, consumers ‘feeling the pinch’ or a ‘squeeze’ on household spending’ is just that, an interpretation….compound that with the fact that inflation is mostly due to world price factors and not Brexit and you have a very skewed and political picture being painted by the BBC….consider this…look how the BBC explains away the fall in US growth and then comes back with a much more positive picture for later in the year….and yet no Brexit and no rapidly falling dollar……

US growth rate hits three-year low

The US economy slowed dramatically in the first three months of the year, according to official data.

GDP expanded at an annual rate of 0.7% in the first quarter – the slowest rate since the first quarter of 2014.

The slowdown was down to stagnant consumer spending, economists said.

“Household spending was held down by a drop back in motor vehicle sales from a near-record high at the end of last year and the unseasonably warm winter weather, which depressed utilities spending,” said Paul Ashworth, chief US economist at Capital Economics.

But there’s a bounce later in the year….

The Trump administration may be reassured by the trend in recent years for growth figures to be depressed in the first quarter, but then pick up later in the year.

“US GDP figures are typically weaker in the first quarter, so this reading is in line with the seasonal trend,” said Nancy Curtin, chief investment officer at Close Brothers Asset Management.

But he thinks consumer spending will “rebound” as personal income showed healthy growth and data suggests that consumer confidence remains high.

Close Brothers’ Ms Curtin also pointed out that other data suggested strength in the US economy .