What's holding the British economy back? Debt, debt, and more debt

Maxed out

Last week the coalition government was hit with a combination punch of bad economic news. On the same day unemployment was upand the Bank of England’s growth forecasts were down.

Labour were quick to point the finger. Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls said “The British economic recovery was choked off well before the instability in the last few months in the eurozone...The government is cutting too far and too fast and it’s pushing borrowing and unemployment up at the same time”

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Cameron faces a fight on two fronts against Germany's Merkel

Watch out for those Prussians on the left!

It has become a terrible cliché to discuss Anglo-German relations using World War Two metaphors. But as David Cameron advanced on Berlin for a showdown with Angela Merkel on Friday other military antecedents sprung to mind.

Cameron is fighting Merkel on two fronts. First, he is attempting to resist the tax on financial transactions which the European Union wants to introduce. And so he should. The tax, which is supposed to fund future Eurozone bailouts, will get an estimated 80 percent of its take from the City of London.

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EU referendum and the political class

"This guy cracks me up"

Poor old Gerald Ford was derided for, apparently, being unable to walk and chew gum at the same time. But today’s front rank (sic) British politicians are open about their inability to do two things at once.

As momentum grew in the Conservative parliamentary party for a referendum on membership of the ailing European Union, David Cameron and Ed Miliband both said that to hold one would be a “distraction” from the more pressing business of saving the euro.

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