Building for the future....
Yesterday’s GDP figures were a disappointment, if there hadn’t been a timely reopening of an oil field, the economy would have contracted.
Also inside the figures is some interesting detail, exports to the EU were down 6.5%. A huge amount, let’s hope it is a blip, although the news that the UK is no longer one of Germany’s top ten trading partners suggest that things are changing very quickly and not to the UK’s benefit.
But the really important detail is that the construction industry has shrunk in each of the last 4 months. You’d think that all that pent up demand would lead to a boom but a shortage of materials and people means that the opposite is happening.
The building industry is going to have to train a huge number of new skilled builders to replace EU loses, with no sign of Government help. I doubt it can do that so this is going to be a permanent problem. To those who say this is good news and that working class people voted Brexit for higher wages and who then gloat at the shortage of nannies for the metropolitan elite, I have a few words of warning.
Higher wages for a few mean higher prices for all, the metropolitan elite can afford higher prices, many others can’t. Secondly the ones who campaigned for Brexit and won your vote did so not to increase your wages but because they want to slash and burn what few protections you still have.
It was not Guardian readers who destroyed the trade unions, collective bargaining, final salary pensions and workers rights; slashed benefits and created the gig economy while opposing the minimum wage and EU workers rights.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.