UK’s trade deficit one third up, imports rising at 3 times the rate of exports

Can we all just use our noddles for once, ignore the sleight-of-hand on Budget Day, eschew the ongoing Osborne austerity bollocks, and tune in to the reality at the Office of National Statistics (ONS) site? Only if we all did, I think we’d find it instructive.

The finally revised figures for UK October trade came out this morning. They’ve all been seasonally adjusted, so there can be no excuses. These are the key points:

1. The trade deficit grew by 32% month on month – to £3.6bn.

2. Far from balancing more between goods and services, the services imbalance is getting worse: the deficit of £9.5 billion on goods was mirrored by a £5.9 billion surplus on services.

3. The deficit on trade in goods with EU countries was £5.0 billion – up 10% on the previous month. But just when you wanted to blame the EU recession, the deficit on trade in goods with non-EU countries was £4.5 billion – up nearly 17% on September.

4. Over August to September in total, the volume of imports increased at three times the rate of exports.

5. Our cost of imported raw materials is falling….but at only half the rate of our export prices. In short, our margins on trade continue to deteriorate.

I’m sorry to sound so blunt about this, but I actually have no qualms at all about unelected commercial folks sorting out something that politicians and Whitehall clearly cannot get their fat heads round. They needn’t be in the Cabinet: they just need to have a clear view on Britain’s export marketing, and start to shake up the economic output balance radically. Bankers like Baron ‘Drugs’ Green wouldn’t know which way to hold this sort of task up, but successful managers and exporters would.

As the democracy we are left with is a sham – under which clones get elected and fame-f**kers like Louise Mensch are parachuted in by Dave – the last thing we need to apply to this process is the current British model of democracy. I would of course much prefer a syatem whereby skilled, experienced people are accountable: but as the House of Commons consists almost entirely of half-baked crooks who’ve never had a proper job in their lives, this would seem to me – by a country mile – to be a far better solution.

In the meantime Dave and George (and this applies to the Two Eds equally) there are no hiding places in these data. We need radical action we should’ve had seven years ago, and we need it now. We don’t need another insult-fest across the aisle at the Despatch Desk, we need hard-headed solid graft and drastic economic reform. And as you can no longer blame the Unions guys, perhaps we should look more closely at the lending habits of bankers, the performance of neocon drivel, an urgent drive to back manufacturing, some use for land that involves food not Tory donors….and above all, an all or nothing throw of the dice on getting better products into non-EU markets…starting with our resignation from this EU thing that costs us £120bn a year.

Enough with distraction already – time for action.

 

Closely related – Global finance continues to drag us smiling over the cliff