The silver lining to all the economic doom and gllom

Guido sums up the state we are in quite succinctly:

Government borrowing is at record levels, unemployment is heading towards two million, car workers are on a 3-day week, public sector workers are threatening strikes, nationalisation is back, Deripaska-owned Leyland is even in back the news. To complete the whole 70s era feel we have a sterling collapse. 20% since the beginning of the year...

And then we have this from the BBC:

Factory gloom 'worst since 1980' Falling demand for UK-made goods and a drop in output has caused the sharpest single-quarter fall in manufacturing confidence in 28 years, a survey says.

The CBI survey found only 4% of firms surveyed were more optimistic than three months earlier, against 64% who were less optimistic.

So the silver lining?

Now that Labour have fucked up a boom so badly, despite promising the end of the economic cycle, perhaps they will stop using the mantra of the Tories boom and bust in the 80's to imply that only Labour can manage a modern economy.

The difference is that in the 80's the Tories had to sort out the mess made by Labour and the corporatist Heath Governments and were starting from a very low base line. Labour inherited a growing economy in a country that had had most of the economic mill stones removed - bloated and inefficient public services, bullying unions and failed nationalised industries privatised or closed.