Instead of criticising the banks for not lending to business, the government should look at its own Enterprise Finance Guarantee. Lending under the scheme has fallen by 60 per cent since last year. Maybe suitable firms just aren’t that keen to borrow?
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If the Bank of England admits it got its old forecasts wrong, why should we think its new predictions on the economy are right? Perhaps the Bank just isn’t very good at guessing the future?
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At last the fallacy of allowing us to work until we are 70 or more has been exposed: many people can’t even find work until they are 60 or 65. We are developing a three-tier economy – those who can work beyond retirement age, those who don’t need to – and those forced to stop work before then.
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Housing was a leading indicator of the last recession; is it now heralding the double dip? Chancellor George Osborne could find the property market undoes his best efforts to keep the economy growing.
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You can take Russia out of the Soviet Union but its ban on wheat exports shows that you can’t take the Soviets out of Russia. They may look like capitalists when it suits, but Moscow quickly reverts to the planned economy.
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We are now three years into the granddaddy of all financial crises, yet it has still not yet been given a name. Other crashes and catastrophes have a handy handle – the Russian debt crisis or dotcom bubble – but what should we call this one.
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What does it say when the government sets up an inquiry into why there are so few women in boardrooms – and appoints a man to head it. Is that to prove the inquiry’s independence or is it because the committee wanted a proven company leader and most such leaders are male?
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Northern Rock has proved the law of unintended consequences. Having split this year into a “good bank” and “bad bank”, it is the bad half that is making profits while the good half has reported a loss. Maybe the government will have to sell the “bad bank” and be stuck with the good.
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Who should run the Royal Navy? Admirals or accountants? With a replacement for the Trident nuclear deterrent costing £20bn, recruiting a few bean-counters to the poop deck makes sense, but maybe an illusionist is what is really required?
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If employers cannot make staff retire at 65, will they have to make redundancy payments to force them to go? If so, few will leave voluntarily: they’ll hang on for the windfall payout.
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