Of All the Unforeseeable Things

Among those small businesses which have so far survived Global Britain's world-beating prosperity, a minority expect their sales to improve next quarter, while a mere ninety-two per cent report that their costs have been higher than last year's. Meanwhile, whatever green shoots of optimism penetrate the desert sands of independence may yet wither before the Bank of England's serenity in accepting the poverty of others. Certainly very few acolytes of pragmatic entrepreneurialism as a subcategory of Britishness will be prepared to accept that people who have less money also spend less, and that cutting off access to beastly foreign markets does not necessarily constitute a ticket to the sunlit uplands.