Ignore the gloomy headlines because overall, it’s good news for Britain, says Mark Dolan

It seems like we've become addicted to bad news, it's the crack cocaine eagerly distributed by click hungry media outlets.

We saw it during the Brexit referendum, when apparently the world was going to end if we left the block. We saw it when Donald Trump became president because apparently he was going to destroy America, rather than make it great again.

And of course the mainstream media’s whipping up of fear and panic, reached its nadir during the pandemic, with an almost pornographic obsession among the news channels with filming in Covid wards, adding to a narrative that we were being visited upon by the bubonic plague.

Horrible virus though it is and it's taken too many from us, the bubonic plague it, was not. But fear sells.

And those publishers peddling covid hysteria, couldn't care less about the consequences. Which is why I read with a mixture of amusement and dismay at the latest headlines this week about our economy and how Britain will be in a doom loop of economic hell until 2050.

2050? Who the hell can possibly know, where we will be, in a quarter of a century’s time?

If you look at pathetic Covid modelling or similarly inaccurate financial projections, including the Bank of England’s recent underestimating of inflation, we can barely predict what's going to happen next week, let alone in 2050. But why does it make a headline?

Because it gets a reaction, because it's bad news, which has become a golden commodity and because it ties in with a wider attempt, by so many of my journalistic colleagues, to cast Britain in a negative light.

Britain bashing, has become a national pastime, shamefully indulged in by privileged media commentators, who are entitled to characterise the country in a critical and analytical way, but too many write and speak about this country, in a way that demonstrates they hate it.

Well I don't. I love Britain and for all of its many challenges, including an undoubted economic crisis – self-inflicted of course, let's not go there.

Jeremy Hunt's Autumn Statement is an 'overcorrection', says Mark Dolan.
House of Commons

But it’s my view, that the future is a lot brighter than many of these so called expert commentators. In fact even the immediate future for this country is already positive.

Inflation has likely peaked, which means mortgage interest rates won't head far north of where they are now, and could even come down in the next 12 months.

The cost of energy is tumbling, as nations seek alternatives to Vladimir Putin's supply of oil and gas, as is the cost of government borrowing.

And we have low unemployment and Brexit, which notwithstanding the near-term economic impacts of such a transition, provides Britain and with the potential for more trade deals, and a nimble competitive set of economic policies, which can make this country once again, a haven for global investment.

Plus we’re saving £24 billion a year, in annual payments to Brussels. And I know Sunak and Hunt may have scared the horses, with their terrifying tax hikes, which I believe to be an overcorrection following the ill-fated mini budget. But don't panic, Captain Mainwaring.

Sunak is a money man, and he will get those taxes down, sooner rather than later. He is flanked by Jeremy Hunt, who I disagree with over Covid, but who is a canny and experienced political operator. They're not the most promising double act right now, but knowing they've got two years until the next election, they're getting the pain out of the way now.

Small green shoots will be appearing a good few months ahead of the next poll and at that point, the choice between Starmer and Sunak, will be far closer, than it is today.

There are going to be tough times but we're going to be okay. We need some positive energy. You won't get it anywhere else, but I'm going to be giving it to you, in abundance. Because the fundamentals of the British economy and British society are sound.

We are the fifth biggest economy in the world, with a national debt smaller than that, of the United States, France and Japan.

We are a dynamic and diverse population; we can move fast; we can reinvent, we can adapt. And we will, because we always have done.

Historically, Britain has made a habit of surprising the world and we will do it all again. And we’ve been through far far worse, when German bombs rained over London.

Our best days aren’t behind us folks. They lie ahead. Ignore the gloomy headlines, because overall, it’s good news for Britain. There is sunshine, amid those grey clouds.