B17 UK Economy
Dennis Turner, chief economist at HSBC, gave a very thorough and professional tour de force of the British economy, laced with an excellent sense of humour. This humour was necessary given the background towards recent events.
However, he was complimentary of both the Major and Blair governments for maintaining 16 years of low inflation, low interest rates and a stable economy. This has recently been badly damaged by the world credit crunch, aggravated in this country by excessive government borrowing in the last few years
Dennis is relatively upbeat and now predicts a slow recovery starting at the end of this year; and that the UK economy, unshacked by the Euro, will emerge from recession alongside the US and less affected emerging economies ahead of our European neighbours. The policy of fiscal stimulus by world governments is correct, he said. The threat to this recovery is continued reluctance by banks to do what they are meant to do and lend money to those that need it.
Thanks to Richard Ltham for this report