Commentators are running out of ways to describe our economic problems
With unemployment now at a 17-year high, inflation more than likely heading for 5% this week and the eurozone crisis rumbling on, it's a constant struggle to come up with a bold enough metaphor to encompass the crisis.
So full marks to Peter Spencer, of the Ernst and Young Item Club, for his latest pronouncement: he reckons the UK economy is "stalled at a dangerous junction".
The trouble with metaphors is that it's impossible to resist pushing them just that bit too far. After the announcement of �75bn of quantitative easing this month, Sir Mervyn King is presumably pouring petrol into the tank. And with signs already emerging that the slowdown in the eurozone is rattling the banking sector and depressing demand, Jean-Claude Trichet must be at the wheel of a thundering euro monster truck, tearing towards us.
And George Osborne? He would have to be the hapless novice driver, whose foot has slipped of the clutch and is wondering why the vehicle has shuddered to a halt.
But Labour seems to think it's not just a new driver, or a new car we need, but something even more dramatic: coincidentally, the cover of their Plan for Jobs, launched by the two Eds last week, showed a hard-hatted worker, examining plans for a brand new road.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/oct/16/economic-crisis-metaphors-item-club
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