Yellow shoots?

You probably didn't spot the extra £250 the government stuck on your credit card bill last month, but that was the effect of their policies.

UK public sector net borrowing was £16.1bn in August, 62% higher than the same month in 2008 and another record, because spending continues unabated while tax receipts have fallen 13% year on year.

Public sector borrowing in the first 5 months of the financial year was 150% higher than the same time last year, so that the best estimates are now that instead of a £175 bn deficit for the year as forecast in the budget, or the £200 bn deficit talked about recently by the more bearish pundits, we could be looking at a £225 bn deficit in 2009-10, according to Capital Economics.

Income tax receipts fell approximately 15% year on year while corporation tax receipts fell by over 50% compared with last year.

Worse still, M4 money supply and M4 bank lending figurse from the Bank of England show that the money supply grew by only just 0.1% in August. Why is that bad? Because quantitative easing should have produced a much higher increase. Those disposed towards the government might say it has yet to take effect. The rest of us would say it isn't working. In fact we know that most of the money from QE, paid to the banks for their securities, is still sitting on deposit at the Bank of England.