Gordon Brown goes on the offensive
After last week's disastrous GDP figures Gordon Brown has gone on the offensive reaffirming his claim to "lead the UK out of recession". He has also announced a further crackdown on credit companies in the UK to try and reduce the cost of borrowing and increase liquidity in the UK market at a time when UK consumers are crying out for assistance. However, it is his claim to lead the UK out of recession by the end of 2009 which has caught the headlines.
This is a claim which Gordon Brown has made on numerous occasions and indeed if his earlier forecasts had been correct the UK would have been well on the way to a new growth phase. As it is, the recession continues and last week's announcement of negative GDP growth of 0.4% was a disaster when compared to forecast of growth of 0.2%. As we have mentioned on numerous occasions, if you think of the UK economy as a large tanker on the sea, it will take some time to turn around and is not something which can happen overnight.
As a consequence, there are concerns within the Labour Party that Gordon Brown may have to delay calling the next general election until the very last minute to give his party any chance of re-election.
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