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The End of the Phoney Recession

When World War Two began, people were girded, by all accounts, for an immediate war in England. Instead, they became a little complacent. England waited for Hitler's invasion fleets and so, as Churchill noted later, did the fishes. It took almost a year for the battle of Britain to begin. This period became known as 'the phoney war', which it was certainly not in Eastern and Central Europe.

It has been obvious to the dogs in the street for some time--at least two years--that an awful shabby financial crisis of great proportions has been brewing. This broke some two months ago. Here in London, a strange and slightly tense period of bad news but trickling job losses in the real world has accompanied a sort of delusional optimism that the crisis would only touch bankers, or Americans, or someone else. The shops have still been overpriced, the same old foetid identity arguments have gone on in blogland.

The Phoney Recession is over.

Over ten thousand jobs were wiped out today alone. The pound is plunging, but the country makes precious little anymore and has fewer markets to sell things to than a year ago. People are losing their homes, their livelihoods and their futures, and soon families will start to break under the strain.

When 1940 came along, Britain was a coherent country. Its society, mostly forged in despicable poverty and an oppressive but common culture, largely held together. Now, it is a hollowed-out collection of jurisdictions containing people whom thirty years of extreme capitalism, exploitation and indulgence have raised without many models of defiance in the face of real pressure or sacrifice.

It may come through; it may not. If you want a keen eye and the perspective of a good man (with whom I sometimes disagree) on all of this, look at Martin Kelly's blog here. Here's a link to another good man, Neil Clark, who will no doubt blog the crisis too.

I've been made to sit up more than once by their insights, from the right and the left, and I have also been conscious of their courtesy.

Here comes the water. Ave Maris Stella....

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