‘If it isn’t hurting, it isn’t working’ said another Tory Chancellor, Norman Lamont, at the height of another recession some 30 years ago. I remember it well, it was the only time in my life that I was made redundant, in the days before being made redundant became a part of most careers. And plus ça change, Jeremy Hunt, has seemingly given up on the next election and is happy to prescribe unemployment, repossessions and probably still-shorter life expectancies for those in certain postcodes, as a cure for inflation. As you may have gathered, it’s a view to which I do not wholly subscribe. In pretty much every recession, ever, the rich get richer, or at least stay as rich and it’s the poor and famously-squeezed middle who lose their jobs and homes. And it should not ever be thus.
“Britain’s inflation pain is mostly self-inflicted and getting worse”
The head of the Bank of England and his fellow ‘Central Bankers’ around the world have been talking doom and gloom. But many, including our favoured portfolio managers, have taken some heart at this.
