Deep in the Dordogne, I can’t find a damned thing to be miserable about
Sometimes in this job you feel you’re right in the thick of it, setting agendas, kicking butt, lobbing firecrackers into the national debate. Other times you might as well be some no-mates blogger in the middle of the night. Here I was at the start of August, listing positive economic signals that justified a mood of mild optimism as we set off for our holidays, and declaring that worries about an extended recession should be left for September. And what happens? Did postal disruptions prevent that issue reaching Threadneedle Street? Why else would the Governor of the Bank of England follow it with such a gruesome assessment of Britain’s recovery prospects, wrongfooting us all by adding another £50 billion to his ‘quantitative easing’ programme just when we thought he was about to scrap it. Then ‘über-bear’ Bob Janjuah, a Royal Bank of Scotland analyst with a devoted City following, advises his clients urgently to take profits on recent equity and commodity price rises, because he expects markets to crash in the autumn back to where they were in March, or worse — and sure enough, the FTSE starts wobbling in sympathy.
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