CITY AND SUBURBAN
About this recession that's not going to happen it will be your fault or probably mine
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
Now let's get this clear. There's not going to be a recession. Not here, anyhow. Gordon Brown says so. But if there were one, it would be someone else's fault. Next year should see us through the worst, but he still expects the economy to grow by 1 per cent or more, and for the years ahead he has been whistling to keep his forecasts up or put them up. We shall be a tight little island of stability, and for his sums to work out we shall need to be. A quarter of the world is, as he says, in recession, including its second biggest economy and quite possi- bly, next year, including the biggest of all. If we joined them, we could always say it was their fault. Or it could be the fault of those wicked speculative hedge funds, which the Chancellor would love to regulate, if only he could catch them. Or the banks, which will now be told to do better and be nicer. More likely, though, it would be blamed on you and me for talking ourselves into reces- sion. Ministers warn us against it. At the Department of Trade, Peter Mandelson conjures up the spectre of a media-induced recession and, as he knows, it is amazing what the media can induce. I scarcely dare admit that I think the Chancellor's hopes are on the high side, and that if we avoid a recession next year we shall not avoid a nasty bump, and shall take a while to get over it. Better to follow the example of a former City editor who got along for years on a repertory of two articles. One said: 'Shares have gone down, they are cheap'. The other said 'Shares have gone up, they are rising'. This was, he told me, what his readers wanted to read. No one could accuse him of talking them into a slump.
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