Active discussions

Help protect children from gaming harms.

Take our survey

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Politics
Original poster

Economy shrinks by 0.5%. Georgie is blaming the weather

36 replies

LadyBlaBlah · 25/01/2011 11:07

A great opportunity for Georgie to repeat a pun of "we will not be blown off course by bad weather". He has said it 4 times already in a single interview. Seems a lame excuse - there is never just one factor.

He doesn't dare mention that elusive word confidence

OP posts:
littlebabynothing · 25/01/2011 11:59

maybe we had the wrong type of snow?

Original poster
LadyBlaBlah · 25/01/2011 11:56

I think he might be gorging on the Fray Bentos pies right now

OP posts:
Hullygully · 25/01/2011 11:53

It was the wrong kind of shrinkage

LilyBolero · 25/01/2011 11:51

four times in one interview!

I notice that this bad figure is 'entirely down to the weather', but the global recession was 'entirely down to Gordon Brown'.

Gideon has learnt his lines well...

FreeButtonBee · 25/01/2011 11:23

It did hit at a critical time for retail though - just before Christmas, which did have a massive impact on the busiest time of year for shopping. I know that a deal that my Oh was working on had a significant price adjustment because their Q4 sales were massively lower than expected because of the weather. Dunno about construction.

Tolalola · 25/01/2011 11:22

From the BBC website

"The severe weather hit activity in the quarter, but the ONS said even if the weather impact had been excluded, activity would have been "flattish"."

Apparently a rise of between 0.2 and 0.6% had been expected, so this would have been an unexpectedly bad result, even without the weather.

Original poster
LadyBlaBlah · 25/01/2011 11:21

And the weather was no more prolonged than last year. It was colder which is what Georgie is saying - it was " the coldest for 100 years", but it wasn't necessarily for a longer period of time or deeper snow than early 2010.

OP posts:
TheCrackFox · 25/01/2011 11:20

TBF the weather really didn't help but I honestly think the Tories are talking us into another recession.

BaroqueAroundTheClock · 25/01/2011 11:16

but don't we Brits blame everything on the weather - this isn't news Wink

Seriously though - I know we had bad weather for a couple of weeks - but would 3 or 4 weeks of disrupted trade really have such a dramatic impact on the economy over a quarter? I'm not really clued up on how they work all this stuff out but doesn't the fact that it shrunk by 0.5% (because of the 3/4 weeks of chaos) over the last quarter mean that perhaps things we already a little dicey?

Surely a strong growing economy wouldn't have shunk as a whole by that much over the entire period?

Original poster
LadyBlaBlah · 25/01/2011 11:15

Yes indeed the weather I am sure contributed

Therefore I would wonder next how the government attempted to minimise the impact of the weather? Hmm

But amazingly we do agree that Osbourne bashing is indeed a fun pastime. Smile

OP posts:
Chil1234 · 25/01/2011 11:12

I know that Osborne-bashing is a fun pastime and everything but 'the weather' did have an impact in two important areas of the economy last month. Retail sales and construction.... both of which had been showing good growth previously. Realise it's not the full story but three weeks of chaos was bound to have an effect on trade.