Gratuitous Balls picture if only because it’s so amusing …

An interesting and somewhat confused article from our beloved state broadcaster on today’s downward revision of the first quarter GDP figures where they can’t quite decide which is the real story so seemingly cover all bases and then ignore one point in the article itself to get their own left wing pot shot in at the end :

We start off with a straightforward opener :

The UK economy shrank by 0.3% in the first three months of the year, more than previously thought, revised figures have shown.

Last month’s initial estimate from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed a contraction of 0.2%.

The downward revision was due to a bigger contraction in construction output than previously estimated.

then go straight to the gurning Liebore mouthpiece that is Balls :

Following the revised figures, shadow chancellor Ed Balls described Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne as “complacent and out of touch”.

“It’s now clear that this is a recession made in Downing Street by this government’s failed policies,” he said.

quietly drop this rebuttal of all the hand wringing over state spending cuts in the middle :

An increase in government spending of 1.6% – the biggest rise since the first quarter of 2008 – went some way to offsetting this contraction. This was driven largely by spending on health and defence.

only to sign off the article with un-named “observers” (which makes a change from “experts” I suppose) to ensure that the feeble minded leave with the correct BBC spin :

A number of observers argue that the coalition’s spending cuts have played a large part in the UK’s return to recession. In recent weeks, there have been growing calls across Europe for a greater focus on growth, as opposed to austerity, to help drive the economic recovery and reduce debt levels.

My only question here, given the biggest rise in government spending since 2008 when Brown and Balls were hosing money around like it was going out of fashion is where the fuck are all these spending cuts?

If they want some growth then stop spending our money and let us decide how we want to spend it ourselves instead of pissing millions here, there and everywhere as with this little quarter million number today :

Researchers will get £250m in funding as part of the government’s high-tech growth strategy, Science Minister David Willetts has said.

He said promoting “the technologies of the future” was a “crucial theme” of the government’s industrial policy.

It’s nearly enough to want to make you join the 388,000 who pissed off from here last year :

Estimated long-term emigration from the country over the same 12 months was 338,000, compared with 345,000 for the year before.

especially as there are now another quarter million mouths to feed :

In the 12 months to last September, net migration – the number arriving in the UK to stay for more than a year minus those leaving for good – was 252,000.

Doomed!

Edit.

As an addendum, I just came across an article at The Adam Smith Institute blog with the following :

Where is the austerity here? Where are the significant cuts in spending necessary to address public and private sector dependency on the government and to reform the labour market? Particularly interesting examples are UK and France, where no signs of decreasing spending can be seen. In the UK, public spending to GDP has reached a 50-year historical high (46% of GDP). Some cuts have been made, but everything that was saved up was again used to steer the economy. And so Britain saw schemes that want to pick industrial winners, guide investment projects, subsidize housing, subsidize unemployed young people, and even control the amount and prices of loans in the economy. How do any of these address systemic dependency and how do any of these fit in the aforementioned austerity definition?

Exactly – where is all this austerity?