The expression “It’s the economy, stupid” was famously coined by James Carville, strategist for Bill Clinton in the 1992 US presidential campaign.
Long before we had Carville’s colourful phrase, it was a given that the economic debate was central to all national elections, in this country as much as America.
As far back as 1970, public opinion changed dramatically when trade figures released three days before the general election revealed that, after a run of good returns, there had been a £31m deficit for May. The fact that the purchase of two Boeing jumbo jets skewed the monthly figures was of no avail to the then prime minister, Harold Wilson. Labour’s poll lead vanished and the Conservatives pulled off a shock victory.
It’s a long time since our trade deficit — nearly £5bn in March — set the political weather in the UK. These days, it barely makes the news. And we’re entering the final days of a general election in which the economy has scarcely featured.
Brexit has formed the context for Britain’s economic debate, but it’s also been less of a Brexit election than was anticipated. Instead, the dominating issues have been confusion over Tory policy on the care of elderly people in England — the tastelessly termed “dementia tax”— and Theresa May’s refusal to turn up for TV debates.
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In good times, it may be possible to have the luxury of debating the country’s future without discussing the economy.
But these are not good times.
Figures out last week showed that the UK’s growth rate of just 0.2% in the first quarter of 2017 means that Britain has slumped to joint bottom in the league table of G7 economies — on a par with Italy.
Early resilience to Brexit is over. Inflation is going up on the back of the fall in sterling’s value. That hits household budgets and damages the main driver of UK growth — consumer spending.
Britain’s economic fundamentals are not strong.
“Scotland has the option to consider how we could emulate the success of other smaller nations
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A revealing analysis was published on Wednesday by the IMD World Competitiveness Centre, which has been assessing national economies for more than 25 years. This year’s survey ranked countries on the basis of 255 criteria, covering economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure.
It makes poor reading for the UK.
Britain has gone down the global charts to 19th place. And that’s before we are out of the EU and the world’s biggest single market which, ironically, successive UK governments worked so hard to create.
A striking feature of the report is that many of the best performers are smaller nations.
Holland is in fifth place in the world rankings. Ireland is recovering from tough times and moved up to No 6. Denmark is seventh, Luxembourg eighth, Sweden ninth, Norway 11th and Finland 15th.
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The balance sheet of a country at any one point is obviously significant, but even more important is underlying economic performance and the direction of travel.
If any party aspiring to government at Westminster has plans to turn Britain’s relatively poor record round, we’ve yet to hear about it in this election.
Scotland has the option to at least consider how we could emulate the success of other smaller nations, by becoming independent in Europe rather than devolved in the UK.
That’s for the future. Meantime, whatever our views, we need to get smart by getting Britain’s debate back to the economy.