ECONOMIC wobbles: The economic growth statistics just announced make worrying reading.
The ‘headline figure’ of 0.5 per cent is at least positive, but there isn’t much to celebrate. The construction sector – in many ways the backbone of the economy – declined: bad news indeed.
Chancellor Osborne tried to put a brave face on the numbers.
But everyone knows if the Lib Dems hadn’t ‘reined him in,’ he’d have cut public spending even more. That would turn the screw on Government jobs, services and benefits, and would almost certainly have caused the dreaded ‘double dip recession.’
For Wales, it’s particularly bad news, because it’s the second most dependent nation in the UK on Government spending. We can be thankful that the Tories haven’t been able to ruin things on their own like they did in the 1980s under Thatcher’s bleak regime.
However, in comparison to other countries like Germany and America, the UK economic performance is not impressive. Jobs are not being created as fast as would otherwise be the case, and investment in future prosperity risks falling behind our key competitors.
Worse still, figures I saw last week show that Wales is the least productive part, per head, of the entire UK.
This is not a new thing. It tends to suffer more than other parts of the UK, simply on account of the educational and historic economic problems it faces.
As MP, I spent a very considerable amount of my time protecting jobs and seeking new investment to Montgomeryshire.
That on its own was pretty much a full time job.
I was grateful to have many years direct experience of industry, enabling me to understand, network and negotiate with industrialists to look after the constituency’s employment base as best I could.
With the construction sector in danger, the MP’s responsibility for jobs is even more important in our area.
I hope that we’ll see some serious investment of time and effort to making sure that, in a shaky economic environment, Mid Wales won’t be left behind by the rest of the nation. It’s happened before – and without direct and strenuous input by our politicians, it will happen again.
One thing’s for sure: for Cameron to respond to Harriet Harman regarding the pressure he faced at Prime Minister’s Questions with the words ‘calm down, dear’ not once, but twice, really misses the point.
Rather than flirting with sexism in the Commons, he’d be better advised to tell his Chancellor to stop flirting with recession in the country.
Given the relative lack of confidence the Chancellor appears to garner from the business community, it will be interesting whether Osborne will be humble enough to take advice from anyone!