ENERGY Secretary Ed Davey has become the first Coalition minister to suggest Britain is seeing the "green shoots" of recovery.
The phrase has until now been studiously avoided for fear that it will make the UK Government seem overly optimistic.
Baroness Vadera, the former Labour business minister, sparked controversy in 2009 in the wake of the banking crash when she claimed she could see "a few green shoots" of economic recovery. At the time, Lady Vadera was branded "unbelievably insensitive" as she made her remarks on a day when UK firms announced large-scale job losses and shares slumped. In 1991, then-chancellor Norman Lamont was criticised for saying, in the middle of a recession, that he had detected "the green shoots of economic spring".
Earlier this week, Sir Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, said recovery was "in sight". Mr Davey, in a radio interview, was asked if he now saw "green shoots" coming through. The Secretary of State replied: "I think we can.
"We can't be complacent, far from it. There's really difficult times there. I mean trying to deal with the fiscal deficit, the borrowings we were left, given the global economic forces but we've been steadily, slowly reforming the British economy."
Asked if he was not afraid the remarks might blow up in his face, he said: "I'm not an economic forecaster. I read the signals that you do. I listen to people like the Governor of the Bank of England."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article