Going South

A provocative look at how and why Britain has fallen into decline from being a superpower in 1914 to being a third world economy in 2014 by two of Britain's leading Economists journalists With a second recession looming, Britain is facing a moment of truth. Going South examines how the leader of the Industrial Revolution came to exhibit the features of a "developing country." The symptoms of this vertiginous plunge in the world's rankings are already starkly apparent: a chronic balance of payment deficit, a looming shortage of energy and food, a dysfunctional labor market, volatility in economic growth, and a painful vulnerability to external events. And if these are the big indicators of imminent relegation to the Third World, many smaller ones are too numerous to fully catalogue. So stark is the evidence that it is our contention that Britain's looming relegation is not in doubt. The names change with intellectual fashion--the developing world, the Third World, less-developed countries, "emerging markets," or simply the Global South. But the destination is the same. Britain is going south--rapidly. Assuming that Britain faces up to its plight, there is no easy model for the redevelopment of the national economy. Whichever path is taken will be a hard one. The age of the quick fixes is over.

ISBN	0230392547	Pages	400
ISBN13	9780230392540 (What's this?)	Weight (grammes)	437
Publisher	Palgrave Macmillan	Published in	Basingstoke
Imprint	Palgrave Macmillan	Height (mm)	197
Format	Paperback	Width (mm)	128
Publication date	14 Jun 2012	Spine width (mm)	28
DEWEY	330.941086	Academic level	General
DEWEY edition	DC23

Introduction: Decline and Fall June 1914: A Snapshot June 2014: Lagos-on-Thames Welcome to the Beautiful South A Century of Failure Win Some, Lose Some Into Free Fall: The No-Strategy Strategy The Great Reckoning Hanging on in There Desperately Seeking Sweden After the Illusions

'Elliott and Atkinson issued a prescient warning in Fantasy Island about the UK economy at a time when most commentators believed Gordon Brown's claim that he had abolished boom and bust. This book is another splendid polemic in the same mould, bursting with provocative ideas.' - Paul Ormerod, economist and author of Positive Linking and Why Most Things Fail' 'For over a century, Britain has been in denial about its decline. Unless it accepts the reality and gets its acts together soon, it may well join the South, that is, the developing world. That is the chilling message of this book, which you will start reading with incredulity but almost certainly close with the shocking realisation that it may well be right. Written with verve and edge, based on a profound understanding of Britain's history and full of insights about the economics, politics and popular culture of today's Britain, this book is an extremely powerful and sobering wake-up call for a nation that has lived off its past glory for too long.' - Ha-Joon Chang, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, and the author of Bad Samaritans and 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism 'Atkinson and Elliott are savagely effective critics of the historic failure of Thatcher and Blair to check national decline in a world where our managerial and political elites do not know what to do about financial crisis. Their argument about how Britain is going south to developing country status is important because it counters wishful thinking about how we can become more Nordic and focuses the key questions about Britain's trajectory. This is what radical economic journalism should be about.' - Prof Karel Williams, CRESC, University of Manchester 'The redoubtable team of Elliott and Atkinson have done it again. Having predicted in their last book that the boom would end in tears, they now draw on their deep knowledge of Britain's economic history to warn of the danger of absolute, not relative, decline. Controversial - but disturbingly convincing. And a great read.' - William Keegan, The Observer 'Depressing and enlightening in equal measure. A compelling read from two journalists with a track-record of stripping bare the social and economic problems that Britain seems either unwilling or unable to tackle.' - Jeff Randall, Sky News business presenter

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