Business Sense

Business leaders who confidently predicted that the private sector would be able to compensate for the Government's attack on the public sector have now decided that they'd rather not, thank you. The reason they'd rather not is because the economy is suffering and prices are rising. One reason the economy is suffering is because large numbers of people are being thrown out of work onto reduced benefits, and even larger numbers are afraid of being thrown out of work onto reduced benefits, which means that increasing numbers of taxpayers and human resources, and possibly even some real people, are no longer consuming as avidly as they might.

All this is, of course, an unintended and presumably unforeseen consequence of the Government's policies. It was really too much to expect George the Progressively Regressive and little Daniel Doormat to foresee that (to take a random example) raising VAT might cause prices to go up; and it was certainly naïve of the business community to expect the Government to believe what the business community said about putting the last touches to its Infinite Employability Drive just as the Government's contribution to planetary demolition was kicking in. Certainly nobody can have imagined that cynics would so quickly call into question the wisdom and foresight of a Government which spent its first year almost entirely on stabbing backs and putting feet.

Hence, although certain entrepreneurial resources have expressed concern about the deterioration of the economy, they all seem quite happy for the Government to continue enacting the policies which caused the economy to deteriorate, on the thoroughly sane and sensible grounds that, when driving towards a precipice, changing direction will make you fall harder. "We have to stay the course," said one prominent pizza salesman. "If we waver, living standards would deteriorate even further."