Michael Meacher MP

Cameron’s  seeking to explain away yesterday that the national economy was now shrinking by 0.2% in the last quarter of 2011 won’t wash.   He blamed high inflation, Labour mismanagement and the eurozone problems.   High inflation is irrelevant to a contraction of national output which is clearly down to lack of demand because of squeezed incomes.   So far from Labour mismanagement being the cause, it was Labour relaunching growth in the first half of 2010 after the deep slump of 2008-9 that produced an economy growing at more than 1% a year in the second half of 2010, which Tory austerity managed first to flatline through the first half of 2011 and then actually to contract at the end of 2011.   As for the eurozone crisis last summer, the UK economy was already falling into decline up to a year previously.   Cameron’s points are all bogus. (more…)