"It’s the economy weather, stupid."
I have the key to economic success. Whilst George Osborne hurries around Downing Street pulling levers and trying to squeeze pennies from taxpayers, it has suddenly become patently obvious to me what the answer is: sunshine.
After several miserable summers dogged by constant rain, grey skies and consistently negative economic news; all of a sudden the UK’s economy has jumped by 0.7 percent in Q2 of 2013. Is it pure coincidence that the UK has had its best summer for years and now house prices are skyrocketing and unemployment is dropping? Look back to the winter of 2009 – the start of the recent cold winters – the economy nosedived by 0.5 percent. So my theory scientifically is: good weather = GDP+. Bad weather = GDP-.
Economists and the media also support my theory. The Guardian recently reported that retail sales grew by 1.1 percent as shoppers ran to shops in their thousands to buy arm loads of sun cream and bikinis. Now, if we could only create a new bikini-making industry we could create thousands of jobs and really get the economy moving. One thing is for sure – the gorgeous British weather is already creating more jobs in the world of PR!
So there it is – it’s official. The key to economic success is sunshine. Now I just need to work out what is happening with the weather in Greece and Spain…
