Herald View

Saturday 2 June 2012

CHANCELLOR George Osborne should ensure he has a good look at the latest UK manufacturing survey from the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, if he has not done so already.

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So much for his vision, offered in March 2011, of a "Britain carried aloft by the march of the makers".

The survey, although it shows export orders are falling, also provides yet more evidence of the weak domestic position.

The UK economy is already back in recession – something which even the troubled 17-nation eurozone as a whole has avoided.Eurozone woes are undoubtedly exacerbating the UK's troubles now but the seeds for the renewed recession here were sown back in 2010 when Mr Osborne ramped up the austerity programme, and shattered business and consumer confidence by declaring the country was near-bankrupt.CIPS' manufacturing survey will fuel fears that the UK will stay stuck in recession in the current quarter to June.Mr Osborne's notion that the Coalition Government's public sector cuts would help unleash the private sector and produce strong UK economic growth by now has proved as far-fetched as it looked at the time of his first Budget in June 2010.Partly as a result of his policy-making blunders, the UK unemployment rate is 8.2%. The International Monetary Fund says this is "much too high". And hundreds of thousands of people, including many young people, are suffering the misery of unemployment, with little sign that things are going to get better any time soon.

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