The End is Nigh!

There are people who believe in unicorns, ghosts, the afterlife, palm reading, graphology, various gods, faerie folk, genies, Jeremy Corbyn, hobgoblins and accurate economic forecasting. While there has been no proof over millennia that any on this list exists there is plenty of recent evidence that the last is but a figment of fantasy. If we knew what tomorrow would bring the world as we know it would become even more predictably unpredictable. It is a classic paradox: if you knew ‘for certain’ that the shares you buy today would double in value next month, so would everybody else. The ensuing rush would create a bubble and most would lose their shirts on the deal.

Predictions do not forecast the future, they shape it; at least they do if you believe them. The converse is illustrated by those who, having been told by their doctor that if they carry on as they are they will grow fat, become diabetic, go blind and die, ignore that advice and then go on to prove the prognosis. Why do we listen to some forecasts but not others? How do we react to forecasts we know are designed to alter our behaviour in a way we are reluctant to adopt? Do we ever believe the prognostications of those for whom we have little respect? And what do we make of predictions based on the unknowable, complex and entirely speculative machinations of financial and political institutions?

Let me see if I’ve got this right: According to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank of England, if we leave the EU without a deal the economy will still grow and we will all be richer, but not as rich as we might have been if we went with May’s deal, which is a tiny bit less more-rich than Chequers, which is not as more-richer-still as staying in the EU, assuming we could do so retaining all rebates and vetoes, which is not an option and so can be excluded from the analysis, even though it wasn’t. The statements are riddled with ifs, coulds and maybes and hedged all around with disclaimers: Warning, the value of your country may go up as well as down...

It is clear to all (who voted to leave, at least) that these words have nothing to do with actual forecasting and all to do with scaring cabinet colleagues into capitulation. Whether the country at large believes any of it is irrelevant as the decision has been taken from their hands and their instruction ignored in favour of a politically motivated and manipulated future. If Hammond fully understands this and is signed up to it (and all indications suggest he is) then he is committing sophistry, if he doesn’t he is a fool.

Tory MPs stand by their principles

Fool me once, goes the saying, but if you keep on predicting Armageddon and it doesn’t happen, ‘Peter’, who will be there when the wolves finally come for you? The push to scare Tory MPs into caving in has begun in earnest and as Andrea Leadsom has surrendered, so will others. The future of Britain as a sovereign nation will be decided by the superstitious acceptance of an unproven philosophy. If you want to prove me wrong, Phil, Mark... just give me Saturday’s Lotto numbers.