The Conservatives really need to use their time left in this Parliament to capitalise on the good economic news coming Britain’s way.

British business confidence up

On Tuesday, March 12, 2024, Guido Fawkes reported that UK business confidence has reached a two-year high, far ahead that of the Eurozone (red emphases his):

S&P Global has released its new UK Business Outlook report today – it’ll make sorry reading for the remoaners. Their survey of 12,000 manufacturers and service providers has put production expectations in the UK at their highest level since February 2o22. Topping the pack of 12 countries surveyed…

A net balance of +49% of UK private sector companies are anticipating a rise in business activity over the next 12 months. That’s 240% of the Eurozone, above the global level, and well ahead of France and Germany at the bottom of the pack…

UK companies are also expecting a jump in their profits, with a net +26% expecting profits to increase over the year ahead, up from +17% in October. Leaving the sluggish European competition lagging far behind…

GDP growth in January may indicate recession over

On Wednesday, March 13, Guido told us that our short recession could be over, thanks to growth, albeit modest, in January:

New figures just released by the Office For National Statistics will make reassuring reading for Hunt and Sunak. Growth is back with a rate of 0.2% in January after December’s 0.1% drop. More or less in line with expectations…

Hunt says the numbers “show we are making progress in growing the economy… we need to make work pay, which means ending the unfairness of taxing work twice“. Services output growth of 0.2% pushed GDP up while construction and production output fell. The Bank of England will be watching. If growth keeps up in this trend, last quarter’s technical recession may be one of the shortest and shallowest ever. The figures show Britain on track to grow over the first quarter as a whole, ending the recession.

This was further corroborated the same day by The Spectator‘s Katy Balls in ‘Britain’s recession looks like it’s over’.

Harland & Wolff in sights for Falkland Islands project

And, finally, on Wednesday, March 6, The Times reported ‘Harland & Wolff chosen for £120m Falkland Islands port project’ (emphases mine):

… Subject to agreeing the final contract pricing and concluding commercial negotiations, work on the two-year project is expected to begin later this year.

The manufacturing group will construct, transport and install four floating pontoons, measuring 90 metres each to the South Atlantic.

The pontoons will replace the existing port facilities located in Stanley, the capital, which consists of six linked barges. The port was also built by Harland & Wolff in 1984. However, the facilities have now become obsolete.

If awarded the contract, Harland & Wolff said it would spread the construction of the port across multiple facilities to “de-risk the fabrication” of the pontoons.

The company’s four sites in Belfast, Devon, Fife and the Isle of Lewis are all capable of building pontoons.

John Wood, the chief executive officer of Harland & Wolff Group, said: “The company enjoys an excellent relationship and a rich heritage with the Falkland Islands given that Harland and Wolff built the six linked barges which make up the existing port facility 45 years ago.”

The possible contract is a further boost to the business which was saved from administration in 2019 after it was bought for £6 million by London-based energy firm InfraStrata.

Last November it was announced that naval shipbuilding would return to Harland & Wolff shipyards for the first time in two decades.

The Ministry of Defence awarded a £1.6 billion contract to the stock market-listed company formerly known as InfraStrata, which bought the Harland & Wolff yards from administrators in 2019, to assemble three new vessels to serve the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers and wider fleet.

The government contract will create 1,200 new jobs at the company, with 900 of them to be located at its historic Belfast shipyard.

Harland & Wolff was founded in 1861 by Edward Harland and his German business partner, Gustav Wolff. It employs about 1,000 people across its four sites.

These are the sorts of news items that Conservative MPs should be trumpeting from the rooftops. This is hardly the first batch, either, just a serial continuation over the past several months. Why aren’t MPs, particularly those doing the news rounds, doing anything in this regard?