Britain on 'budget blacklist'

We've all had to have that awkward conversation with the bank manager sometimes. You know the sort - he shuffles his papers, looks at you from over his spectacles and asks you if it's really necessary to extend your overdraft so that you can take a course of helicopter-flying lessons.

Yes - the grand arena of spending and borrowing is a tricky one to navigate, and it looks like Britain as a whole is particularly useless at it. In yet another sign that our national economy is about as stable as a bridge made of lollipop sticks, the EU has placed the UK on a budget blacklist.

Britain has found itself with an excessive budget deficit, which means that we join the esteemed ranks of both Hungary and Romania as those who have broke through the EU's wrist-slapping 3% limit barrier. Not only that - it is forecast that we'll continue at a whopping 3.3% until 2009 at least.

We were almost joined by the French, yet they managed to stay within the bounds of respectability at 2.5% this year. Give it twelve months, however, and the EU reckons that they'll be inhabiting the same financial naughty corner as this credit-crunched island.

The one small consolation? European economic slowdown isn't going to be as severe as the American one.

Well, we did say small.

Written by C J Davies on 28 Apr 2008 10:21 PM. Permalink