7 ms·

Sshhh, you're not supposed to point out that inflation and recession are happening in many countries. The unwritten rule here is that if anything bad happens an

Sshhh, you're not supposed to point out that inflation and recession are happening in many countries. The unwritten rule here is that if anything bad happens anywhere in the UK, it's always because of leaving the EU. Also we're not allowed to remember that just a year ago the UK was crushing Europe in vaccine access so badly the EU was openly talking about seizing British assets to try and catch up; the unique performance of the UK in this area was due to it ignoring the EU joint acquisition programme. That's all been memory holed a long time ago, of course. The EU is best at everything.

pasabagi 4y ago
Eh, you're overthinking the vaccine story. It's unsurprising that the UK had better access to vaccines: the UK is one of the world's biggest medical industry centers. The point about inflation and recession is not that it isn't happening elsewhere: it's just that it's worse in the UK. It's also kind of obvious that putting a tariff on all your exports (leaving the common market) is bad for the economy. I suspect brexit is more a symptom than a cause. The UK has had horrible economic growth for over a decade now, largely driven by a political system that concentrates power in the hands of not particularly competent people.
- makomk 4y ago
  UK inflation in September: 10.1% Eurozone inflation in September: 9.9% I've seen some wild claims circulating that, for example, 80% of the UK's inflation is caused by Brexit but those don't seem at all plausible. No EU member has inflation that low, France's is about the lowest at 6.2% and that's with some fairly substantial and expensive energy price subsidies keeping it down. In fact I don't think there's any country in the developed world with inflation as low as that would imply the UK's should be if not for Brexit.
  - kergonath 4y ago
    > UK inflation in September: 10.1% Inflation is only part of the problem. The economy is not in a great shape overall. And the forecasts are terrible. If you read a bit more on what the BoE says, you’ll see there is more to it than the sound bites you get from politicians. Also, Labour is lucky not to be in power right now, but they will still have to do the thankless, dirty work when they get their majority. Expect some vocal disappointment in the near future. For context, whilst the BoE forecasts the longest recession ever in the UK, the ECB adjusted its forecasts for 2022 to 4% and 2023 to 2.7%. The British economy really is not behaving like the EU’s.
    - origin_path 4y ago
      Of course the forecasts are terrible, they're terrible everywhere. The attempts to fight COVID and especially lockdowns were a disaster. Things were pretty normal up until they started. This has nothing to do with Brexit.
      - kergonath 4y ago
        Brexit happened in January 2020. As the first lockdown started, the news were that trade was falling from a cliff, which was part of the impetus to deny anything bad was happening, to avoid shutting down the country at an already difficult time. Things had started to change beforehand as various actors tried to adapt before the shit hit the fan, but yeah, the effects were not being felt that much, on account of the thing not having actually started yet.
  - pasabagi 4y ago
    It's a bit of a misleading stat - the EU's avg. inflation is brought up by the poorer countries. If you compare the UK to France, Germany, Italy (the normal points of comparison, in other words), it's obviously doing fairly badly[0]. It's also not the only stat that looks bad. Foreign direct investment, for instance, fell off a cliff. Exports have basically plateaued, probably because it's actually really difficult to get things in and out of the EU now. On a more fundamental level, leaving the single market is essentially declaring a trade war on your own economy. It's never going to be a good economic proposition, and the hard brexit we've ended up makes it pretty onerous to do anything over EU/UK borders. [0]: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/uk-inflation-compare-european-countries-162510952.html https://uk.news.yahoo.com/uk-inflation-compare-european-coun...
    - makomk 4y ago
      No, it really is only France and a couple of smaller countries which have that comparatively low inflation - Germany was 10.9%, Italy 9.4%. That headline average inflation figure is pretty representative. (Also, it looks like one of the countries bringing up the average was the Netherlands which is definitely not considered one of the poorer countries.) What people do often point to is the interest rates Germany's government pays to borrow money, which are rather lower than the UK (and lower than the rest of the Eurozone). Basically, the only comparisons that get made are the ones that make the UK look worse.
- origin_path 4y ago
  "It's unsurprising that the UK had better access to vaccines:" Other countries in Europe have pharma industries, most obviously France. And the mRNA vaccines were partly developed by a German company (BioNTech) so, this doesn't work. It was a surprise and the reason the UK got better access much faster because the EU insisted on doing everything as a single bloc, in a heavily centralized way, and the EU institutions are slow. "The point about inflation and recession is not that it isn't happening elsewhere: it's just that it's worse in the UK." As pointed out by makomk, this isn't true. "The UK has had horrible economic growth for over a decade now, largely driven by a political system that concentrates power in the hands of not particularly competent people" This talking point is also made up. UK growth has been similar to the EU for the last decade - sometimes a bit higher, sometimes a bit lower. See for yourself: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-growth?tab=chart&time=2010..latest&country=GBR~European+Union~FRA~DEU~ITA~ESP https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-growth?tab... If the UK has had "horrible" growth due to "incompetent people" then the same is true of the European Union as a whole. There's a real problem with pro-EU misinformation here. Both your talking points about economics are completely false. It's not even like Europe is the only place with inflation, the whole world has it right now thanks to the massive money printing that went into lockdowns and other attempts to mitigate COVID. I thought everyone knew that.
  - pasabagi 4y ago
    Are we looking at the same graph? Aside from 2012-14, it consistently shows the UK trailing the pack in terms of growth, often by multiple percentage points. Bear in mind, even a single percentage point is quite a big deal: the chinese economy was 'roaring' at an average of 4% growth per year. I loaded up the csv in visidata, and the graph you sent me shows the UK trails the EU growth average by half a percentage point since 2008. Against a relatively well-performing economy like germany, it trails by 0.94% over the same period. I do take your general point that the stats do not make such a dramatic picture as one would expect given the recent coverage. The general picture, though, is of a country generally underperforming, even when compared against an underperforming region. This is, in my eyes, totally in keeping with what you would expect from the haphazard policy-flailing that has characterized the UK government in recent years.
ginko 4y ago
>Also we're not allowed to remember that just a year ago the UK was crushing Europe in vaccine access so badly the EU was openly talking about seizing British assets to try and catch up; the unique performance of the UK in this area was due to it ignoring the EU joint acquisition programme. It's only you guys that made this a competition in the first place. If anything it's good for you this whole episode has been memory holed since it made the UK look like a bunch of selfish pricks. Meanwhile the UK had the highest number of total COVID deaths per capita in Western Europe.
the_why_of_y 4y ago
> Also we're not allowed to remember that just a year ago the UK was crushing Europe in vaccine access so badly the EU was openly talking about seizing British assets to try and catch up Actually, the issue was that AstraZeneca had simultaneously signed a contract with the UK with a clause that it would give them priority access to vaccines, and with the EU with a clause that it doesn't have any other contract that would prevent it from fulfilling its requirements. Naturally this eventually went to court. https://www.fieldfisher.com/en/insights/eu-v-astrazeneca-lessons-on-contractual-agreements https://www.fieldfisher.com/en/insights/eu-v-astrazeneca-les...

pasabagi 4y ago

Eh, you're overthinking the vaccine story. It's unsurprising that the UK had better access to vaccines: the UK is one of the world's biggest medical industry centers. The point about inflation and recession is not that it isn't happening elsewhere: it's just that it's worse in the UK. It's also kind of obvious that putting a tariff on all your exports (leaving the common market) is bad for the economy. I suspect brexit is more a symptom than a cause. The UK has had horrible economic growth for over a decade now, largely driven by a political system that concentrates power in the hands of not particularly competent people.

makomk 4y ago
UK inflation in September: 10.1% Eurozone inflation in September: 9.9% I've seen some wild claims circulating that, for example, 80% of the UK's inflation is caused by Brexit but those don't seem at all plausible. No EU member has inflation that low, France's is about the lowest at 6.2% and that's with some fairly substantial and expensive energy price subsidies keeping it down. In fact I don't think there's any country in the developed world with inflation as low as that would imply the UK's should be if not for Brexit.
- kergonath 4y ago
  > UK inflation in September: 10.1% Inflation is only part of the problem. The economy is not in a great shape overall. And the forecasts are terrible. If you read a bit more on what the BoE says, you’ll see there is more to it than the sound bites you get from politicians. Also, Labour is lucky not to be in power right now, but they will still have to do the thankless, dirty work when they get their majority. Expect some vocal disappointment in the near future. For context, whilst the BoE forecasts the longest recession ever in the UK, the ECB adjusted its forecasts for 2022 to 4% and 2023 to 2.7%. The British economy really is not behaving like the EU’s.
  - origin_path 4y ago
    Of course the forecasts are terrible, they're terrible everywhere. The attempts to fight COVID and especially lockdowns were a disaster. Things were pretty normal up until they started. This has nothing to do with Brexit.
    - kergonath 4y ago
      Brexit happened in January 2020. As the first lockdown started, the news were that trade was falling from a cliff, which was part of the impetus to deny anything bad was happening, to avoid shutting down the country at an already difficult time. Things had started to change beforehand as various actors tried to adapt before the shit hit the fan, but yeah, the effects were not being felt that much, on account of the thing not having actually started yet.
- pasabagi 4y ago
  It's a bit of a misleading stat - the EU's avg. inflation is brought up by the poorer countries. If you compare the UK to France, Germany, Italy (the normal points of comparison, in other words), it's obviously doing fairly badly[0]. It's also not the only stat that looks bad. Foreign direct investment, for instance, fell off a cliff. Exports have basically plateaued, probably because it's actually really difficult to get things in and out of the EU now. On a more fundamental level, leaving the single market is essentially declaring a trade war on your own economy. It's never going to be a good economic proposition, and the hard brexit we've ended up makes it pretty onerous to do anything over EU/UK borders. [0]: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/uk-inflation-compare-european-countries-162510952.html https://uk.news.yahoo.com/uk-inflation-compare-european-coun...
  - makomk 4y ago
    No, it really is only France and a couple of smaller countries which have that comparatively low inflation - Germany was 10.9%, Italy 9.4%. That headline average inflation figure is pretty representative. (Also, it looks like one of the countries bringing up the average was the Netherlands which is definitely not considered one of the poorer countries.) What people do often point to is the interest rates Germany's government pays to borrow money, which are rather lower than the UK (and lower than the rest of the Eurozone). Basically, the only comparisons that get made are the ones that make the UK look worse.
origin_path 4y ago
"It's unsurprising that the UK had better access to vaccines:" Other countries in Europe have pharma industries, most obviously France. And the mRNA vaccines were partly developed by a German company (BioNTech) so, this doesn't work. It was a surprise and the reason the UK got better access much faster because the EU insisted on doing everything as a single bloc, in a heavily centralized way, and the EU institutions are slow. "The point about inflation and recession is not that it isn't happening elsewhere: it's just that it's worse in the UK." As pointed out by makomk, this isn't true. "The UK has had horrible economic growth for over a decade now, largely driven by a political system that concentrates power in the hands of not particularly competent people" This talking point is also made up. UK growth has been similar to the EU for the last decade - sometimes a bit higher, sometimes a bit lower. See for yourself: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-growth?tab=chart&time=2010..latest&country=GBR~European+Union~FRA~DEU~ITA~ESP https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-growth?tab... If the UK has had "horrible" growth due to "incompetent people" then the same is true of the European Union as a whole. There's a real problem with pro-EU misinformation here. Both your talking points about economics are completely false. It's not even like Europe is the only place with inflation, the whole world has it right now thanks to the massive money printing that went into lockdowns and other attempts to mitigate COVID. I thought everyone knew that.
- pasabagi 4y ago
  Are we looking at the same graph? Aside from 2012-14, it consistently shows the UK trailing the pack in terms of growth, often by multiple percentage points. Bear in mind, even a single percentage point is quite a big deal: the chinese economy was 'roaring' at an average of 4% growth per year. I loaded up the csv in visidata, and the graph you sent me shows the UK trails the EU growth average by half a percentage point since 2008. Against a relatively well-performing economy like germany, it trails by 0.94% over the same period. I do take your general point that the stats do not make such a dramatic picture as one would expect given the recent coverage. The general picture, though, is of a country generally underperforming, even when compared against an underperforming region. This is, in my eyes, totally in keeping with what you would expect from the haphazard policy-flailing that has characterized the UK government in recent years.

ginko 4y ago

>Also we're not allowed to remember that just a year ago the UK was crushing Europe in vaccine access so badly the EU was openly talking about seizing British assets to try and catch up; the unique performance of the UK in this area was due to it ignoring the EU joint acquisition programme. It's only you guys that made this a competition in the first place. If anything it's good for you this whole episode has been memory holed since it made the UK look like a bunch of selfish pricks. Meanwhile the UK had the highest number of total COVID deaths per capita in Western Europe.

the_why_of_y 4y ago

> Also we're not allowed to remember that just a year ago the UK was crushing Europe in vaccine access so badly the EU was openly talking about seizing British assets to try and catch up Actually, the issue was that AstraZeneca had simultaneously signed a contract with the UK with a clause that it would give them priority access to vaccines, and with the EU with a clause that it doesn't have any other contract that would prevent it from fulfilling its requirements. Naturally this eventually went to court. https://www.fieldfisher.com/en/insights/eu-v-astrazeneca-lessons-on-contractual-agreements https://www.fieldfisher.com/en/insights/eu-v-astrazeneca-les...