Britain’s economy is a mess – and it’s only getting worse

The British economy is in a grim old state. Public sector staff are striking, consumers are crumbling, and the high street is feeling the pinch. With the Bank of England unwilling to do anything to combat inflation, it will only get worse. John Stepek looks at how to protect yourself from the big squeeze.

Amid all the focus on Greece this week, it's been easy to overlook the fact that over here in Britain, we're seeing a fair bit of economic turmoil ourselves.

We've got strike action by various public sector workers this morning. Putting politics aside, the bare facts are that private sector companies have to shed workers and squeeze pay and conditions when there's not enough money to go round. It's difficult to see why things should be any different in the public sector.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.