UK economy faces uncertainty, limited by debt: Philip Hammond

H/t reader squodgy:

“This is the first Chancellor to admit the country is in a terrible mess. Strange how the MSM let it fly under their radar. It isn’t just in a terrible mess, it is TOTALLY BANKRUPT, INSOLVENT and WORTHLESS.

Under Thatcher on instructions from the ‘elite’, the UK diversity was crushed, manufacturing decimated, agriculture ‘monocultured’, and national assets disposed of to foreign conglomerates. At that time North Sea Oil was carrying UK.

Now, no oil, no manufacturing, no agriculture. Just a greedy and corrupt Financial sector currently in a death spiral thanks to bad investment gambling when a slump was clearly on the horizon.

Fucking incompetence, bad management & treason.”

High treason, indeed.

At least they have applied the “best” policies to “jumpstart the (now almost non-existent) economy” …

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– UK economy faces uncertainty, limited by debt: Hammond:

UK finance minister Philip Hammond has warned that high debt has tied the government’s hands, in a time when the country needs a “watertight” economy to cope with years of “uncertainty” that lie ahead.

In an interview with the BBC on Sunday, Hammond said the country’s first budget plan since the vote to leave the European Union (EU) in July was constrained by “eye-wateringly” high debt and had to be carefully planned to minimize possible damages by Brexit.

“Over the next couple of years we are going to face some uncertainty over the economy,” he said, pointing to the difficult negotiations with the EU that, according to Prime Minister Theresa May, would take at least two years to complete.

Britain’s public debt hovers around £1.6 trillion, which equals 84 percent of the country’s economic output last year and is the highest over the past 50 years.

Hammond said that for now the government could not push new spending but he was hopeful about seizing “a whole raft of opportunities” that would emerge after Brexit.

“We’ve got to make sure that the prosperity that comes from seizing opportunities ahead is shared across the country and across the income distribution,” he added.

Prior to the June 23 vote, when 52 percent of Britons voted in favor of Brexit, Hammond’s predecessor George Osborne had warned that the government might push out a so-called “punishment budget” to counter the negative effects of the move.

However, it seems that the British economy has fared well enough to prevent extreme cuts in the manner that Osborne had suggested.

Hammond made the remarks days before the government releases its Autumn Statement on economy.

Labour Party, which has been critical of the Troy government’s approach to the economy, said that the government’s newly announced plans to spend £1.3 billion on roads showed that it had no major plans to change course.

“It’s a minor change in direction when this Autumn Statement should be a significant reversal of economic strategy,” said John McDonnell, the opposition party’s top finance official.

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