Credit crunch is such a stupid term

5:52pm Friday 5th September 2008

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THE one thing about Britain’s economic crisis that’s winding me up more than anything else is the stupid term used to describe it.

“The Credit Crunch” is possibly the most banal political euphemism of all time. This alliterative expression sounds humourous, harmless and friendly. Yet,the crisis is anything but.

The national media has made hay with the phrase and even Chancellor Ali Darling has been quoted as using it.

To be fair to Darling, he was right I suppose to give an interview saying we were facing the worst economic crisis in 60 years. Not so much a crunch, then, but a meltdown.

His comments caused shockwaves in political circles with the Shadow Chancellor George Osborne saying he’d let the “cat out of the bag” about the state of the economy.

Sorry Georgie boy, but that’s just schoolboy taunting. The cat, or cataclysm, has been out of the bag for ages now as far as householders and businesses are concerned.

It’s only the politicians and the pampered City suits who don’t realise that the common man – on normal average wages – can’t cope and is finding life hell. I have to laugh when political commentators and MPs predict we could have a recession soon. As far as the man on the Wycombe omnibus is concerned, the recession is in full flow.

No one apart from the wealthy has any money any longer. The scandalous hikes in utility bills have seen to that. Most families will now have to pay between £300 to £400 per month for gas, electricity, council tax and water.

There’s no choice in this. You have to pay it to live, so you cut back on less essential items such as food, clothing, cars and new homes.

I’m not a fan of Darling (another misnomer there) but he was stating the bleeding obvious – unlike those who tone down the extremity of our economic woes by using a glib catchphrase to describe it.