During the referendum campaign, in February 2016, Nigel Adams, our local MP told his constituents, "We have the fifth largest economy in the world and I expect our economy
will leapfrog over Germany and Japan to rise up the league table even
further" (HERE). I thought this was delusional at the time (HERE) and was simply another demonstration of the sort of fool we had accidentally elected to represent us in parliament.
Now at the end of 2018, a report by Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) points to Britain slipping to seventh next year (HERE).
This will no doubt be of keen interest to Mr Adams. He quoted PwC approvingly in July 2018 in his Selby Times column when he used an economic forecast by that company (recently hit by a record £10 million penalty for its role in auditing BHS before it was sold for the princely sum of £1) which said we could be the fastest growing G7 economy up to 2050. I assume it was the only optimistic prediction he could find, alhough I noticed even PWC only said we could be. We were the fastest growing up to 2016 - up to the referendum that is - since when we've become almost the slowest in the G7. Amazing.
But now PwC say next year it is likely we will slip behind France and India to become the seventh largest economy. Bear in mind at the end of the nineteenth century we had the world's largest economy.
I don't suppose this extraordinary feat of backwards leapfrogging will appear in his Selby Times column anytime soon as one of the benefits of Brexit.
