The British economy got an unexpected boost from dropping out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in September 1992. By the final quarter of 1995, Britain’s standardised unemployment rate was lower than that of France, Germany or Italy and Britain’s employment rate of working age people was higher.

Also, in 1992, Clinton was elected US President and the American economy started out on its long boom through the rest of the 1990s.

This time the concern is about how much the busting of the property price bubble in America and a credit-crunch induced by sub-prime mortages there will cause the American economy to slow down, possibly to the point of moving into recession.

The OECD is certainly concerned about UK economic prospects:

“The Bank of England may have to cut interest rates because of a risk that UK growth will weaken as a result of the recent turmoil in financial markets, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has warned.

“In its 2007 Economic Survey of the United Kingdom, the OECD said: ‘The outlook for both growth and inflation has now become more uncertain and there is a risk that growth will be weaker going forward, which could imply a need for interest rate reductions.’”
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article2543131.ece

Worth reading the latest OECD survey of the UK Economy:
http://www.oecd.org/document/56/0,3343,en_2649_201185_39354040_1_1_1_1,00.html

The OECD survey makes special mention of Britain’s productivity gap with peer-group countries and Britain’s relatively large budget deficit – after a decade of New Labour.

Better the devil you know in some ways.

“A slump in the commercial property market is hitting retail investors and pension schemes with sector funds suffering their first fall in total returns for 15 years in September.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bce7a596-7382-11dc-abf0-0000779fd2ac.html

On Friday, Martin Wolf had a special piece about an overdue correction in house prices:

“Gordon Brown is thinking about calling an early election. Among the reasons to believe he should do so is the vulnerability of the UK to a housing meltdown similar to that in the US. . . An election now might at least postpone his day of reckoning.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0ecb34d0-72a8-11dc-b7ff-0000779fd2ac.html

The day before, The Times had this:

“The first monthly fall in house prices this year was reported yesterday [3 October], fuelling fears that a looming downturn in the property market will hit the economy hard next year.”
http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/buying_and_selling/article2592162.ece

This is a frenzy driven entirely by the political media class. We don’t need an election and I don’t believe that many people are bothered about having one (indeed the majority will stay at home anyway, whenever the election happens). I still like to think this was a brilliant piece of strategy by Brown to produce a bit of Tory ‘premature ejaculation’. I’m probably wrong but that would be my story if I were Brown

There’s no constitutional imperative to hold an election now but the latest poll shows that voters now want one soon – 48% of all voters want a November contest, against 43% who do not with 8% undecided.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/polls/story/0,,2184783,00.html

Apparently, the greatest pressure for an early election is coming from Conservative voters, “67% of whom say they want one to take place against only 29% who do not. Support for a poll now is much weaker among Labour voters: only 36% want an election while 58% do not.”

If Brown is at all wise he’ll quickly end the farce and decide to hang on without another election for a while.