Britain Not Looking so Great

Before anyone writes in to complain about anti-British sentiments, we should disclose that this writer in English. However, that only makes the disaster that looks to be unfolding financially on that side of that Atlantic so much harder to swallow. It appears that Britain is sliding into its second recession since the beginning of the financial crisis, and that Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron is running out of ideas on how to deal with it. Let's not panic too quickly though. By staying out of the euro zone, Britain is unlikely to suffer the same fate as Ireland, as well as Greece, Italy and Portugal. However, the British government, a coalition between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, is seeing its popularity plummet after implementing some widely criticized tax measures. Not only that, but links between the government and media tycoon Rupert Murdoch continued to surface. While in the states, big business and government in bed together is practically encouraged, in Britain it is considered a gross conflict of interests. Murdoch, let's not forget, has been no stranger to controversy of late. The phone hacking scandal leading to death of the trashy but historic News of the World newspaper is something that those in power should really be steering clear of. So here are the numbers. Britain's gross domestic product fell 0.2% in 1Q12 on top of a 0.3% fall at the end of 2011. Local elections take place on May 3, and those figures won't make for appy reading for the voters. Cameron called the figures, "very, very disappointing" when speaking to parliament, adding, "I don't seek to excuse them. I don't see to try to explain them away. There is no complacency at all in this government in dealing with what is a very tough situation that frankly has just got tougher." How the hell did things go wrong so quickly when most economists were expecting modest growth? Well, the construction industry falling like a lemming didn't help. Throw in a slump in financial services, plus oil and gas extraction, and the problems present themselves very clearly. It'll be fascinating to see how Cameron deals with this. Much like conservative politicians in the States, his approach so far has been to cut taxes at the top end of the pay scale, while taking money from pensioners. Unsurprisingly, that has not gone down well with the majority of the British public. Finance minister George Osborne was not kidding when he said, "It's taking longer than anyone hoped to recover from the biggest debt crisis of our lifetime," adding, "The one thing that would make the situation even worse would be to abandon our credible plan and deliberately add more borrowing and even more debt." Naturally, the Labour Party is having a field day with this, saying that the Conservatives could have avoided the "double-dip recession" by doing away with austerity plans. Of course Labour said that. Politics is politics, and the party will do what it can to pull favor away from the Conservatives in hard times. The forthcoming elections will be fascinating.