So Messrs Cameron and Clegg – the most unlikely marriage since Michael Jackson and Lisa-Marie Presley – have been sharing their common-law house at Number 10 Downing Street for 100 days. Chances are that Samantha Cameron has by now thrown out the horse-hair sofas and tartan wall hangings left behind by the previous incumbents, replacing them with something a little more Notting Hill chic. But did we honestly expect her husband to achieve such sweeping changes in the health of the UK economy?
Regardless of which colour of the political spectrum you hold dear, it is plain to see that the Cameron/Clegg coalition has inherited a chalice more poisonous than a tabloid journalist’s breath. The UK economy, along with those of great swathes of the world, was decimated by the meltdown of the banking system and the resulting global recession. It was always going to take more than the switching of rosette colours and a few well-meaning political sound-bites to set the nation back on the road to recovery. Anyone that thought otherwise was surely drinking too liberally from a constantly half-full glass.
For a more realistic view of how long such change takes, we only need to look across the Atlantic. For all the bluster of his “can we change, yes we can” election rhetoric, Barack Obama has had his feet under the desk in the Oval Office for well over 18 months now and yet his much-lauded stimulus funding is only now trickling down to America’s blue collar workers. To expect David Cameron to achieve in 100 days what President Obama is still working on after 500 or more is as ludicrous as it is unreasonable.
Of course, the Cameron/Clegg coalition is certainly not above criticism. The predictable freezing of the Building Schools for the Future programme was still akin to kicking a man when he’s down. And the Government’s ongoing failure to recognise that a pound spent on construction is £2.84 gained by the UK economy is a matter that we must all address as a matter of urgency.
But, the fact is that the UK economy is in a hole and, although the measures set in place are harsh, it finally appears that we have at last stopped digging ourselves in ever deeper. That said, as anyone involved in the groundworks business will tell you, it’s going to take more than 100 days to backfill a hole of that magnitude.
