A perfect storm

Haven't Gordon and the rest of the Labour Government been clever, they have screwed the UK in so many ways and messed it up for whoever follows them. Meanwhile they all have lovely public sector pensions to live off as well as the properties paid for by the UK taxpayer and all of the chattels in the properties. They can all disappear to whatever sun drenched island paradise takes their fancy, or in Gordon Brown's case whatever dour, drizzle ridden Scottish mansion he desires, and wave us poor suckers good-bye. Is scum too strong a word?

As Burning Our Money helpfully lists, these are the current headline economic figures:

" * Inflation accelerating- CPI currently 4.4% and RPI 5%. The Governor of the Bank of England - the man charged with keeping it at 2% - admits it will go higher still
* Sterling collapsing - against our trade weighted basket of currencies, sterling is now down 13% over the last year... and the inflation pressure is up even further
* Unemployment taking off - now up to 5.4%... so just since Tuesday, the Misery Index has pushed up a further 0.2% to 10.4% (compared to just 9.6% in May 1997)
* Public finances disintegrating - in the first three months of this financial year the government clocked up a £20.4bn deficit, £8bn worse than last year... the collapse in the housing market on its own means a £3-4bn budgetary hole, and this morning's FT brought news that Merrill Lynch is charging $29bn of its global sub-prime losses against UK tax - which means they will pay no UK tax at all for several decades! (HTP Joan W)
* Home repossessions soaring - despite constant assurances that "it was much worse under the Tories", the latest stats for home repossession orders show they are already running at around 112,000 pa (2008 H1 sa), and climbing fast; that's actually only 30,000 less than the 143,000 recorded at the height of the Tory mess in 1991... so watch this space (and remember the stats next time Yvette Cooper tries to make out the Tories were worse)."