Bad news aplenty
The economy is still producing plenty of bad news.
For instance, the day before yesterday it was reported that the UK recession was even deeper than first thought (at 6.4% rather than 6.2%), which means it was definitely the worst one since the 1930s.
The same day we got news of a Chinese rating agency which claims that its Western competitors are biased towards the West, and it duly placed the UK at AA-, compared to AA+ for China and Germany. This doesn’t change anything at the moment, but if banks start taking these ratings into account, it could lead to debt repayment getting much more costly for the UK and other Western countries.
Finally, the ONS has now counted the total indebtedness of the UK, and it adds up to about £4 trillion, compared to the standard national debt, which currently stands at just £903bn.