A year on from the Spending Review, the coalition’s soothsayer has emerged to offer another gloomy economic prognosis. Asked by ITV News whether he could promise that there wouldn’t be a double-dip recession, Vince Cable replied: “I can’t do that. We know conditions are very difficult but the government is doing the best it can to protect people.” The Business Secretary spoke only of the “possibility” (hastily adding, “well indeed the certainty”) that the coalition would turn things round.
It’s not the first time that Cable has warned of a double-dip. In an interview with the Guardian’s Decca Aitkenhead last August, he noted that the government’s forecasts put the risk of a double-dip “at something like one in four, one in five” but he would only say “well below 50-50” (a figure that sounded rather higher than one in five). Then there was his interview with NS editor Jason Cowley, in which he spoke of the danger of another “financial bomb” going off.
As ever, there is something admirable about the Business Secretary’s economic realism. But it prompts the question: what is he going to do about it? In some ways, the government has already adopted a plan B in the form of credit easing, accelerated deregulation and more QE by the Bank of England (described by George Osborne in 2009 as “the last resort of desperate governments when all other policies have failed”). The question remains whether it will change course again by temporarily slowing the cuts or offering further fiscal stimulus (a plan C, if you like). For now, there is no sign of that. But Osborne’s Damascene conversion to quantitative easing is a reminder of how even this most stubborn of Chancellors can change his mind.
Announcing a second round of QE earlier this month, Bank of England governor Mervyn King remarked “When the world changes, we change our policy response.” Cable’s pessimism will only increase the pressure on Osborne to change his.
Content from our partners
Related
