The fact that the economy has narrowly avoided slipping into recession is no cause for celebration.
Britain remains stuck in the slow lane, with growth flatlining and investment declining.
The Tory mismanagement of the nation’s finances means we are the only G7 country whose economy is smaller than before Covid.
It is still 0.8% below where it was in 2019, whereas the US is up 5.1%, France is up 1.2% and Italy has grown by 3.1%.
The Government wants to blame the pandemic and the war in Ukraine for this dire situation rather than admit it is the product of 12 years of Conservative failure.
Their misguided policies are the reason why we have the highest tax burden since the Second World War and the steepest fall in living standards since the 1950s.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is only prolonging the pain, with forecasters warning that some seven million households will struggle to cover their food and fuel bills this year.
The Tories have held the economy back and have also held people back.
NHS’s decline
There is one issue where this paper agrees with Lee Anderson – the NHS has declined under the Conservatives.
The Tory loud-mouth moaned in 2016 there was a shortage of staff, home visits had been cancelled and medicines were harder to get.
Seven years later, the situation is even worse, with waiting lists and ambulance response times in England at record levels.
The blame for this situation is with the Government that Mr Anderson supports.
If he is genuinely concerned about the state of the health service he would be fighting to give its staff a pay rise, instead of pushing through punitive anti-strike laws.
Cari on, Basil
Comedian John Cleese could set his new rebooted series of sitcom Fawlty Towers in the Caribbean.
You can Jamaica your own jokes…
