It is a regular source of complaint from constituents that the media is full of bad news, celebrities and trivia. “Why don’t we hear more good news?”, people say.

Certainly, some media outlets seem to thrive on presenting an entirely negative view of what is happening in our country but it was, probably, ever thus. 

Contrary to most of the frequent ‘doom and gloom’ coverage in relation to the UK economy, which tends to cherry-pick the worse statistics to suit a particular narrative , this week we had real evidence that the UK economy is performing better than forecast. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t make many of the headlines. 

For example, it was recently revealed that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) who, after releasing some dire predictions, had to sheepishly admit that they were wrong about their deficit forecast – by a staggering £30 billion.

They stated the deficit is “£22.0 billion below our forecast profile in the headline figures and £30.6 billion below profile on a like-for-like basis”. Of course, the correction got much less coverage than their original gloomy outlook or the typically downbeat forecasts of other regular prophets of doom.  

If we search further, we discover that we had a budget surplus of nearly £6 billion in January instead of the predicted £4 billion shortfall; that the predictions surrounding the number of people in employment were inaccurate, with a 74,000 increase rather than a 40,000 decrease and that we had a growth of 0.5%  in retail sales in January rather than the predicted fall of 0.3%. The FTSE is at an all-time high and we now know that in 2022 (just as in 2021) the UK was the fastest growing of all the G7 economies. It seems a world away from the IMF’s usual downbeat (and largely inaccurate) predictions.  

Here, in North Somerset, unemployment remains around one third of the national average and  the region has secured one of the best funding settlements from Rishi Sunak’s government for the improvement in bus services. Nearly £30 million will be spent delivering a new network and over £22m on a new fares and ticketing system.

That should not only provide a much needed boost for local residents but enable our businesses to grow by enabling people to come to work from higher unemployment areas. With inflation set to fall, the worst of the Putin-inspired cost of living problems may now be behind us. While we will still face problems on a number of fronts, as the nights start to get lighter, maybe our national mood would benefit from doing the same. 

The Rt Hon Dr Liam Fox MP 

Member of Parliament for North Somerset