Another day, another prophecy of economic woe. This time it was the International Monetary Fund delivering the bad news, announcing this week that it has cut its UK economic growth forecast to just 1.6% per year in 2008 and 2009.
It is the last thing Alistair Darling needs, as he struggles with fears the housing market is about to expire, a backlash over the abolition of the 10p tax rate, and of course the global credit crunch.
No surprise, then, that the beleaguered chancellor lost no time in disavowing the IMF’s figures and insisting that his considerably more optimistic growth forecasts, first set out in last month’s Budget, tell the real story.
Trouble is, Darling’s forecasts were greeted with considerable scepticism then, and the steady stream of bad news in the weeks since – new mortgage, anyone? – leaves them looking like wishful thinking now.
The Liberal Democrats’ Vince Cable, who in recent months has established himself as something of an oracle on all matters economic, has accused the chancellor of ‘whistling in the dark’. He has called on Darling to level with the public about the very real problems facing the UK. Few are likely to disagree.
In such uncertain times, everyone has good reason to be nervous about the security of their jobs and homes. A chancellor who insists, with Panglossian optimism, that all will be well does not give the impression of one prepared for the economic shocks still to come.
It is a particular concern for public servants, who can expect further budget squeezes and demands for efficiency savings if it turns out the Treasury has got its sums wrong.
So the public is entitled to expect from the government a sober analysis of the challenges we are all facing, instead of a narrative that appears rooted in political expediency rather than economic reality.
Not least the many public sector employees who are being asked to accept below-inflation pay rises for the good of the country.
If the government were willing to acknowledge the evident problems with the UK’s public finances and economy, it could even help persuade the sceptics it has a strategy for addressing them.
