The UK's recovery: a painted façade

Half-timbered houses in Hastings Old Town

The more I listen to government pronouncements about economic recovery, the more I sympathise with the recurring criticism from the Labour front benches of government ministers being out of touch.  Overall statistics are one thing - and it's better for us to have some overall growth than nothing at all - but the truth on the ground is considerably more complicated than these figures would have one believe.  

George Osborne, our Chancellor of the Exchequer (a quaint title for what in any other country would be a Minister of Finance), would have us believe that the present recovery, such as it is, is due to his continuing measures for austerity.  These measures have consisted in brutal cuts on central and local government expenditure, the main impact of which has been felt by the poorest section of society.  Unemployment is said to have fallen, but the figures are distorted by people in part-time work or on so-called "zero-hours" contracts, which give them no guarantee of earning a wage.  Many who are employed are in jobs that pay so low a wage that it is difficult for them to make ends meet.  One of our neighbours is contemplating a job  in a residential care home, at an hourly rate of £6.84, giving him a monthly gross pay of £1,185.  There is a shortage of workers in the care sector, and recurring scandals about the way in which the elderly are treated in residential homes.  But I find it difficult to believe that the situation will greatly improve with wages at this level.  

In the run-up to Christmas this year the Hastings shops are all feeling the pinch.  The welter of cut prices and special offers in the chain stores is an indicator of how hard they are having to fight to maintain turnover.  When goods are being offered so cheap I scarcely dare think what people are being paid further up the supply chain.

But the real sufferers are the small independent shops, deserted because of a shortage of cash on the one hand and the lure of online shopping on the other.  We seem to be becoming a nation of screen-watchers, locked away in our homes.  At a time when the main problem besetting many elderly people is loneliness and isolation, the gradual erosion of our communities augurs ill for the future.  

So don't be fooled by the picturesque façade created by officials; it masks a far grimmer interior than you think.

Antony Mair