The Office for National Statistics has published its growth data this morning, which it has summarised in this tweet:
Let's be clear: that's not a great outcome if growth is your aim. Serious forecasters doubt growth for the year as a whole will reach one per cent. I rather strongly suspect growth will be revised downward in that case in due course. This is permitted.
Let's also be clear that:
- The data is not per head, and the population grew.
- The data takes no account of distribution - so not everyone is experiencing growth or the end of recession.
- ONS data is, right now, notoriously unreliable, even by its own standards
Put all that together, and those suggesting we have cause to celebrate should realise that suggesting that is the case is grossly offensive to all those who will still be struggling in the economy and are likely to be so for some considerable time to come unless government policy changes, of which there seems to be little prospect.
This is likely to be a day where you will feel inclined to shout at your radio or television news bulletins if you listen or view them because a great deal of nonsense will be spouted, almost all of which will miss the point.
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What are the error-bars on that number?
Rounding
Thank you again for drawing attention to manipulative, official, socio-economic statistics which are (deliberately) deceptive by not including any food bank usage.
2010 – 60,000 food bank packages
2021 – 2.5 million ditto
(Tribune)
You are now going to drown in Conservative media spin about ‘green shoots’, ‘over the worst’, ‘feel good’ and the rest of the rubbish. Within a weeks you will be told that this is what success looks like; aren’t you lucky. We will all still be floating in sewage, our prisons will be still be reprising a world worse than a Dicken’s novel; the town centres will still all be boarded-up, domestic energy will still be over-priced, our public services will still be wrecked, we will still have homelessness; we will not be building enough new homes (construction down a whopping 9%), rents will spiral, the infrastructure will continue to crumble; and it will be the same-old self-congratulatory “service” based-economy (the same rip-off merchants stripping value out of everything and building nothing), that has served us so badly for so long. Congratulations. You are being ripped-off again.
BBC Radio Scotland News, Drivetime has wheeled out Danni Hewson, Head of Financial Analysis at AJ Bell to tell us all (are you sitting comfortably boys and girls?), that we are to think of the economy as a “great big cake”, and we all receive a slice of the cake, and when the economy is growing “our slice of the cake gets bigger”. There you are, children; its all fixed. Rishi fixed it all in no time. Happy days. sunlit uplands.
What on earth does BBC Scotland think it is doing? They all seem to live in a worlsdsuffused by the soft focus lens of “Uncle Mac”. The newsroom is clearly, and plainly quite daft.
I did warn you. this would happen It is comically absurd, if you do not live in Pacific Quay, Glasgow. Finding someone to regurgitate this tripe is easy. So prone are the economic apologists for neoliberalism to this kind of economic drivel, or to their crackpot theory of money, that I am beginning to think that they must actually believe it all; which is quite unbelievable. Point me to the nearest darkened room.
What total, utter BS. The BBC really are going low.
That’s why BBC Scotland’s Drivetime programme is widely called ‘Driveltime’.
Referring to a “service economy”, which the government brags about endlessly, presumably as a supposed mark of British economic sophistication (rather than a more honest assessment of our long established proclivity for preferring to extract rents, and excel in paper shuffling and asset stripping).
Why is it, then that whenever a Cabinet Minister or the PM wishes to make a Big Point about the real, working economy; or wants to take advantage of an economic photo op – it isn’t in the ‘service economy’; in a corporate lawyer’s office, or in front of a white board; but rather they invariably prefer to put on a high-viz., jacket, don a yellow safety hat; and visit a Big New Factory. Apart from anything else, the big new factory must now be quite hard to find in Britain; especially if they wish to stand in front of brand new, shiny, gee-whiz equipment that wasn’t made in China, or virtually anywhere but the UK (rather than standing in a leaky tin shed; interviewed in front of a 150 year old machine, that is still somehow being depreciated, and was made by a business that no longer exists; just because it is all that is left that is actually British).
It is no thanks to them we still make anything at all.
‘Service’ economy is a misnomer. ‘Wait for ever on the end of a phone’ economy is what we have turned into.
The govt continually beats about our low productivity. My productivity has decreased enormously since the Covid shutdown.
I have had to wait routinely wait on the phone may be 10x longer than before shutdown for anyone from electric, gas, banks, HMRC, local council, GPs etc to answer; also trying to find alternative ways of contacting organisations when their default of ‘digital first’ ( which actually means first, last and only) goes wrong.
We are talking hours per month of non productive time. Just one person.
But at least the utility companies profits have gone through the roof in the meantime.
I’ve not yet come across any analysis or surveys which might give some quantitative base to my anecdotal experience.
A very good point
I encountered a perfect example of our ‘service economy’ this week.
My husband has a hospital appointment next Thursday, organised on Thursday this week. He needs to do some preparation for it and take some medications the day before. Having organised the appointment over the phone on Thursday, the NHS sent an NHS courier to our house the same day, delivering the necessary instructions and medications. I asked why they didn’t use Royal Mail (as it must be cheaper). Royal Mail is not reliable enough to deliver this urgent package within 5 days. Or send the instructions by email and the prescription to out local pharmacy for collection. A failed service and a huge cost to another service that cannot afford to survive.
Really telling….
Exactly as predicted, here is Sunak: the economy has “‘turned a corner’. He told Sky News’s Ed Conway: I am pleased that while there’s more work to do, today’s figures show that the economy now has real momentum, and I’m confident that with time, people will start to feel the benefits of that……… We’ve had multiple months now where wages are rising, energy bills have fallen, mortgage rates are down and taxes are being cut… I’m pleased with the progress that we’re making”.
You can literally write the script he will read out. All you do is produce some seductively sounding false sound-bites, and quote some badly conceived statistics from quangos or other institutions with a poor track record and little credibility in near-term factual accuracy or forecasting, that will probably lead to the ‘evidence’ being revised in three months; when nobody is looking. That is all you need to do to govern Britain. Secure the Party funding from powerful vested interests protecting their monopolies (not least of influence), and fund the news agenda-forming Press (that determines what Chartered and Franchised media are prepared to discuss); in order to manage and manipulate a captive media. Then sell the public whatever utter tripe, free of effective public challenge or rebuttal keeps the Party in office (whether or not it has any power).
Is this annualised growth or alleged growth per quarter?
If growth per quarter it would be one of the best quarterly performances since the start of the Cameron/Osborne Austerity project to rebuild the fortunes of the rich lost in the Sub-Prime Bubble, which seems very unlikely.
Your points about about the lack of any accounting for population growth and the reliability of ONS statistics are highly pertinent.
Quarterly – which is gery good – but the annual rate is expected to be much lower than this implies and the quarterly figures frequently have rebound characteristics i.e. a low is followed by a high.
I watched Sky News this morning and the reporting was agog about how good the figures were compared to expectations. ‘Back to what we expect would be a good level of growth’ with barely a mention of the crapshow which has preceded it for years.
I then listened to Jeremy Hunt being interviewed on R4 Today where he was able to spout all sorts of nonsense about how the ‘government plan was working’ and we were set for higher growth than anybody and everything is as perfect as it could be, without much pushback from Mishal Husain. I’m not sure if she has the economic understanding to see through his guff? He carried on a bit about NI cuts putting more money in pockets but wasn’t challenged about the long freeze of tax thresholds which has made us poorer and, as you guessed, nothing whatsoever about distribution or per capita numbers or even numbers adjusted for inflation, I suspect.
Hunt’s understanding is so limited he would crumble if he was pushed about some of the details, but there doesn’t seem to be the ability (or perhaps the inclination) to give him a grilling. Shouting at the TV/radio time, indeed.
I did warn you that this is what would happen
It is absurd…
An electoral proposition for consideration:
The Political Fourcast (Ch.4 News Podcast) on the Elphick affair, and was struck by the fact that Matt Frei and Gary Gibbon, towards the end, and perhaps influenced by Mhairi Black MP’s acute observation that the two main parties look interchangeable; began suddenly – at last – to discuss the problem of “Party”.
This is a theme I comment on here quite often, to critique and deconstruct “Party”. I notice, even here, I suspect nobody is really interested; but I insist “Party“ is the fundamental problem. Historically in Britain Party is not recognised in the constitution (formally MP’s are elected as individuals). Party, however rose to power in Parliament informally, and came to control Parliament by stealth. Party now controls the constitution. Party since the twentieth century at least, is purely ideological, and now solely serves Party. People and Parliament are now far behind the interest of Party in everything a Government does in power. Sunak sits in Downing Street, without electoral support and without credibility; but survives there because he is deferring a general election solely to serve the interest of the Conservative Party first. Nothing else matters.
The Elphick self-contradiction is a function of the Party system we now possess. It is based on a two Party cartel in Parliament that has built its Party monopoly on two critical necessities, which the Westminster Cartel (Conservative and Labour) now own: own.
The first is the idea of politics being decided on a “centre” ground. The problem is that in a Two Party cartel (the Two Parties need each other, and only each other); the “centre” is not a fixed point. The centre is on wheels. It can be moved anywhere, provided the cartel move it together. It has moved further and further right over the last forty years. There are now Conservatives who literally describe this Sunak Conservative Government – as Socialist. The centre can be moved anywhere, as long as the Two Party Cartel allows it (backed by a servant media).
Second, and even more important the Two Party Cartel requires FPTP. FPTP means that the Cartel need not rely on a majority backing by the adult population, or even by the registered electorate. FPTP allows Party to assemble minority support, effectively to run an immovable minority Government supported by a minority of voters, but operating as an immune, elective dictatorship. This is easily proved. Boris Johnson ran an 80 majority Government, based on only 34% of those who voted; and only 24% of the registered electorate in 2019. This is how FPTP works. It makes the Two Party Cartel possible, and indeed inevitable.
So minority-serving and monopolistic has the Two Party Cartel become, that in combining FPTP and a “centre-on-wheels” politics, the two parties are now conflating into a single Transferable Party, with two (phoney) faces; to protect the illusion of political difference; that there is a democracy. Democracy is being squeezed out.
The only viable solution for the rest of us; for democracy is the end of FPTP, and the introduction of Proportional Representation (PR). We already have PR in many other elections – notably in Scotland. But note, the PR that has been adopted has been applied by Parliament, serving the interests of the Two Party Cartel. In Scotland, this meant the de Hondt PR system; a list system, in which the Party controls the list, and not the voter. In the STV system, the voter controls who is chosen to serve. Furthermore, unlike Westminster (with deep irony), Party is being built into the constitutional system in Holyrood.
There is a further flaw in PR as currently conducted. While minority Government has huge benefits for all, it forces compromise (democracy in action), it does not stop coalition Government. The SNP has found the downside of coalition. Israel is scarcely a good example of coalition. A PR system does not require coalition to work. Confidence or supply agreements can come in many forms, short of coalition. Coalition suits Party. I would propose banning formal coalitions (with small Parties forming part of the government, and Cabinet).
Party is corruptible, and is easily corrupted. There is no solution to that permanent, imminent danger of Party. Party is untrustworthy. The electorate know this; because it is their incontrovertible experience of voting in our elections. It is fundamental. Party can never be trusted, and should never be trusted. That is why we require democracy. Party seeks to defeat democracy. Use them on the basis of what they do, policy by policy, outcome by outcome; and discard them – ruthlessly; and then move on. That is how they treat you, day in, day out. Never, ever trust them.
As ever, you present a good case, John.
The centre can only be moved because of widespread morally and monetarily illiterate voters. Discuss!
I agree Party is the problem and have mentioned it on here and elsewhere over several years, ever since I read some books advocating against elections and in favour of ideas like citizens assemblies and deliberative consultative democracy. Party and professional politicians, outside money, “think tanks”, professional lobbying with easy access to government, billionaire offshore press barons – there’s quite a long list.
But banning Parties would, at a stroke, produce a cleaner politics and concentrate minds on delivering fairly and equitably.
I really can’t see it happening
And I am also not convinced it would be useful, for all the problems. Some idea as to what a person thinks helps, although Labour seems intent on destroying the value in this.
Where on earth did I propose banning Parties? For the avoidance of doubt, I did not do so. You have completely misread my proposition. I am at a loss how you could deduce that conclusion. I proposed that formal ‘coalition’ (in a PR system) should be banned; not Party. You cannot be rid of Party, but you can limit the damage and havoc Party will wreak, given any opportunity; by restricting its capacity to manipulate any system in which it operates. Party loves to call itself a ‘broad church’; solely in order to absorb opposition within, or banish it to the fringe, or exclude it. I have no illusion Party can be excluded, but it requires eternal vigilance and severe restrictions to prevent it doing precisely what we see in Britain; total control over the narrative of politics in Parliament, and create a single, overarching Transferable Party, endlessly in power and representing a broken illusion of democracy; run by meaningless sound-bites.
For the avoidance of doubt nowhere did I say Mr Warren advocated banning parties and nor did I intend to imply it. My “ban” came after proposing consultative deliberative democracy, closer to the meaning of the “D” word as may have originated in Greece and Athens where parties in the modern sense were unknown.
Of course it’s unlikely to happen, just as many proposals to end the capture of politics and the polity by wealthy interests are unlikely to happen and parties will help perpetuate that capture.
PR, however welcome it may be in many cases, is susceptible to giving control (in theory) to a minor group who could turn out to be very extreme in their policies. If that group hold the balance of power, as did the DUP in Teresa May’s government, they can thwart sensible policies to achieve an outcome that is detrimental to the common good. There may well be ways around this of which I’m unaware.
That is why I do not like coalition government. The system is perfectly capable of adjusting to a loose, ad hoc confidence and supply agreement. This only seems difficult because we are schooled to believe Westminster’s absolute majority is the only viable option; in fact it secures government immune to rejection, and reinforces what is essentially an elective dictatorship: it induces in the electorate expectations that cannot reasonably be met – and it undermines democracy, sows division where none need exist, and exploit differences to create rancour. Westminster is propagandist, confrontational and not designed to find good working solutions (PMQs is illustrative of the whole system).
The most recent ONS population projection is for a 2023-24 rise from 68.4m to 69m. That equates to about 0.22% per quarter. That’s what we need to do just to stand still. We are told we have had 0.6 % GDP growth in the quarter, giving us something like 0.5% for the last year, or about half of the GDP to maintain a status quo per head.
Why on earth aren’t figures reported this way as well?
I wish I knew
The Guardian hinted at this.
I can’t bear this fixation on GDP. And why do the analysts rarely point out what a flawed measure it is.
If you’re going to insist on GDP then surely “productivity” is a better measure as at least it’s population corrected. I put productivity in quotes because of course it tells you nothing about actual productivity but ho hum.
I’d also like to more readily be able to understand how they calculate (fudge) “imputed rent” each time. As it makes up circa 10% of GDP I’d like to easily find out on what basis it’s been calculated.
And how can you look at GDP in isolation of debt? Isn’t this the economic equivalent of iron pyrite – “fool’s growth” ???
I should make a video on this
I am confused about what is being measured.
If the target measure the BoE wishes to bring down is CPI, I believe the index includes chocolate biscuits, but not housing costs.
If so, the BoE strategy should be highly effective. If you increase the cost of items outside an index, then less money is available to buy items within the index.
If CPIH, which includes housing, is used, I think rental costs rose 9% over 12 months. This may be offset by including house prices, which have slightly decreased. However, high mortgage rates mean that the buyer will still be paying more to buy a house that in theory costs less.
Perhaps Richard, or a knowledgeable follower, can explain what the BoE are trying to do, and how they are measuring success.
And is there a similar offset with GDP? Leaving out the bits that are doing badly.
With apologies – I have been out and have no time to do this now
You’re right, statistics are meaningless when they avoid acknowledging the increasing population. If you give people statistics, they’ll just misuse them.
Furthermore, an x% decrease followed by the same x% increase is not the same. Yes GDP is nonsense (money spent on “bads” can increase it), but at least they could provide more meaningful stats. Maybe an index would be more informative. Same with inflation, where some think falling inflation means things are getting cheaper.
ONS has form for wrong figures. In 3-6 months they will be revised. No shouting at the propaganda guff in this household. It won’t be on.
As if GDP were a measure for how well the nation is doing. More and more people are looking around at failing public services. The Tories are believed less every day. The longer they leave the election, the less likely they will win
The Tories gave up on the idea they might win the next election many months ago. The objective now is to do as much pillaging as possible before they lose their privileged position.