How many billions has it cost in propping up the economy to avoid us going into a recession? The £70bn programme of quantitative easing was key. Money well spent to mitigate us having just shot ourselves in the face, but we still dropped from the top to the bottom of the international economic growth charts - at a time the world was booming, we were disembowelling the things which, for better or worse, had become fundamentals in our economy.

Isn't it fortunate we're not under the control of the European Central Bank, and can manage our fiscal and monetary policy effectively?

Anyway, the FT reckons consumer spending is what made the most impact: "there is no doubt the resilience of consumers is the biggest reason for the UK economy exceeding expectations", not QE, which of course helped alongside interest rates cuts.

I'm well aware of and have always expected economic risk with Brexi...oh I can't be arrised, I've repeated it so many times.

Do you think that the UK ecconomy is "exceeding expectations" 1.4% over the last 12 months and although there is a loose BoE target of 2-4% for next year, this looks massively optimistic.
The current "buoyancy" in the ecconomy is all due to desperately low interest rates, ironically, something which isn't usually compatible with a strong ecconomy.
Most sensible people take risk from a position of strength when "you can afford to lose" or from a position of desperation when you have" nothing to lose". I wonder which one of these best describes the position of the UK when taking such a risky venture.

Is your point here that the ECB isn’t effective or that it is ‘them’ rather than ‘us’?

If the latter, I think this is where a lot of the disagreement and mutual incomprehension comes from. People define themselves, and by extension ‘us’ in all sorts of different ways. Culture, language, geography, ethnicity, beliefs, preferences, shared interests. To me, the EU is less alien and other than, for example and setting the bar very low, Johnson, Javid, Gove, Raab, Patel, Truss and Rees-Mogg.

Now, you might say that ‘we’ could at least vote them out. But none of my ‘us’ are voting for them in the first place anyway. We’re outnumbered, and that is how democracy works, so fair enough. But it isn’t fortunate for my ‘us’, it is in fact a e state of affairs.

None of which would mean anything if people weren't spending. We've had very low interest rates since 2008 while the economy has been on quite a rollercoaster (one might question the impact they actually have, although I was grateful for REALLY low mortgage payments) and yes of course QE helped. Meanwhile, spending has increased year on year despite the forecasts of doom. And the position, as you know, was "get out of the EU".

Is it performing ahead of expectations? Depends what your expectations are. I'm honest in that I don't expect much around Brexit and we'll most likely see a dip, but I also expect long-term growth to recover and continue, much as it did following the 2008 recession.

Consumer Spending in the UK (millions)

Nice graph but 1.4% actual growth over the last 12 months really is no great shakes and over the last 6 months, just 0.1%, with a "hit" to come.
The economy is gasping for air, absolutely no doubt and ironically, without the influx of people from outside the UK, we would already have an economy in reverse.
I'll lend you my crystal ball if you like ?

"only the immigrants can save us"



Please, spare me.

You scoff but, if you take out the spend of those "millions" of immigrants, we would be under the line.
My point being, not so much the effect on the economy of immigrants but, more to do with the extremely fragile growth that we have and having just about climbed out of the deepest recession since the war, "some" people think it's a good idea to have another try



It's economic lunacy and looking behind the donors for the leave campaign, getting out of The EU , for them, has more to do with the tightening of some of the rules about "hiding" cash, which will become somewhat more difficult under the new EU rules, something that the UK should be applauding and following, rather than helping some less scrupulous businessmen.

You're over-complicating a simple point, which is very simply that our fiscal and monetary destiny is our own to control - we can decide quickly and effectively what we need to do to balance out the good and bad times.

But your last 2 paragraphs do show a difference in our mindsets. Just because 'right now' your preferred political people stand less chance of getting into power, you prefer to align yourself permanently to the EU - whose aim is to weaken the power of the nation state and gradually bring us all to closer union and centralised political, fiscal and military power. I'd rather take the bold plunge of extricating ourselves from the web while it's still possible, with all the risks that holds.

FWIW I certainly don't see Europe and 'them' and 'us'. Very simply, I don't want to be ruled by the EU, and want no part of their long-term goals.

153,000 immigrants work for the nhs

Despite this the nhs has a staffing crisis with 100,000 vacancies

Without them that figure would be 253,000

Hang on, you pro-mass immigration remainers keep telling us it's all relative; that more immigrants means more tax revenues, means public service expansion, means a bigger economy, etc, etc. Are you saying the reverse doesn't work? That if mass immigration had never happened then yes we might have a slightly smaller economy and slightly less spending - but the benchmarks would shift accordingly. It's all relative, remember. You can't have it both ways.

Yes I'm aware the some groups of immigrants [iTEND [/ito contribute (slightly) more - it's not a like-for-like comparison but there we go. But in reality that contribution is quite small, and some groups actually take more than they contribute. They are certainly not propping the economy up.

And? Is any reasonable person saying they should leave? I'm certainly not.