THE death has been reported of “Mr Feelgood” after a long illness. Remember him? He rose to prominence in the 1980s starring in our economic resurgence and the thumping electoral victories of Mrs Thatcher.
He was widely seen driving a white van – hence giving rise to the political phenomenon known as “White Van Man”. In the 1990s he came back as “Mondeo Man” – and voted for Tony Blair.
It is feared Mr Feelgood may have passed away this autumn after a debilitating illness, known in medical circles as “austerity”. Friends fear he lost the will to live after reading the latest IMF assessment on the UK economy.
Mr Feelgood leaves a welfare state, extensive universal benefit commitments, poorly educated children and unrepayable debts. There is still hope that he may yet reappear as he has done in the past after long periods of absence. A candle-lit vigil is being maintained outside the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce.
But care workers say an enfeebled annuity and relentlessly rising energy bills may have drained him of the last vestiges of hope.
What was it that made Mr Feelgood such a powerful national figure? What role did he play in the resurgent economic upswings of the 1980s and 1990s? And is it too much to hope he could yet again return to save us from permanent enfeeblement and misery?
Mr Feelgood was a product of the 1980s home ownership and consumer boom. After the 1980-81 recession, which laid so much of our manufacturing industry to waste, Mr Feelgood emerged as a powerful economic and political force.
Growing improvement in real household disposable incomes, the sale of shares in state enterprises, the boom in top-up mortgages to finance home improvements and a boom in job opportunities in the burgeoning services sector, promoted Mr Feelgood to unheard of heights.
Anything was possible while Mr Feelgood was around. Companies could launch products, aspirational businesses would float on the USM (Unlisted Securities Market, remember that?), house prices kept going up and, of course, the votes piled up for Mrs Thatcher’s type of can-do Conservatism.
But by the late 1980s inflation was back, Britain joined the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and high interest rates began to choke off, not just inflation but everything else. The British economy plunged once more into recession. Mr Feelgood was out of work, and as the value of his home sank below the level of the outstanding mortgage, he slipped the keys through the building society letter box and disappeared, not being seen again for years.
When he did re-appear he was driving round in a Ford Mondeo with a crude bumper sticker cartoon featuring John Major’s underpants, and on his front window screen a New Labour rose. He plunged into the buy-to-let businesses with self-certification mortgages and, with the encouragement of his bank manager, even dabbled in small scale commercial property funding. But the banking crash hit him amidships, the buy-to-let business collapsed and, as the properties, commercial and residential, proved unsaleable, Mr Feelgood went for a “pre-pack” administration. He emerged as a start-up internet retailer selling bamboo jackets and woodland detritus underwear under the brand name “Feelgood In These”. Unfortunately it was more of a social enterprise than a business and fell victim to a fraud-related forest fire in late 2011.
His property portfolio in ruins, his bank shares reduced to virtually nothing and his Porsche auctioned, Mr Feelgood put his house on the market but withdrew it after failing to attract a single offer. He was last seen at a social enterprise organic wine and vegetarian canapés evening brandishing an NHS mobility stick and declaiming, “We’re all in this together”, before being wheeled off to a quieter part of the building.
That was many months ago. Since then no further sightings have been reported. Might his hour now be at hand at the Scottish Enterprise Business Start-Up Crematorium?
Hold the hymn books. A glimmer of hope may just have appeared on the horizon. The latest ONS quarterly survey of the economic position of households shows an appreciable improvement – a prerequisite for a Feelgood return. Real household income per head rose by £69 in the second quarter of 2012 to stand at £4,510, up 1.6 per cent quarter-on-quarter, taking it up to its highest level since the fourth quarter of 2010.
It will be further helped by the latest fall in inflation to a 34-month low of 2.2 per cent and a further 212,000 rise in UK employment to a record high of 29.59 million. The SNP administration now has a challenge on its hands not allowing the Scottish numbers to fall further behind.
But help may be at hand. In a quiet, discreet way it rather looks as if Mr Feelgood may have tip-toed out from confinement in the rest home, albeit in his carpet slippers and for a moment of two.
The latest Bank of Scotland report on jobs signals an increased in both permanent and temporary staff placements last month. As such, it joins a growing number of indicators pointing to a gathering recovery in the economy after nine months in recession.
The latest Ernst & Young ITEM Club report says the UK economy will rebound in the second half of the year. It predicts economic growth will be 1.2 per cent next year and 2.4 per cent in 2014 and 2015, fuelled by higher consumer spending as a result of falling inflation and a better jobs market. It says these improvements will be boosted by a recovery in the mortgage and housing markets next spring.
Retail sales posted a solid 0.6 per cent rise last month, raising the chances of a more lasting economic recovery. Latest figures from the British Retail Consortium showed like-for-like retail sales rose by 1.5 per cent compared with September last year. And internet sales also showed a rebound after the couch-potato Olympics.
New car sales jumped in Scotland last month, raising industry hopes that consumer confidence is on the rise. A total of 36,330 new cars were registered in September – an increase of more than 15 per cent on the same period last year.
Finally, the widely respected OECD leading indicator for the UK rose for the fourth month in succession, pointing to a continuing, if modest, haul out of recession.
Many have written off a Mr Feelgood resurrection for the next five years, warning that “austerity” in the form of major public expenditure reduction has yet to begin. And all international surveys point to low growth at best for the foreseeable future. These are hardly propitious times for a revival in consumer confidence and domestic demand. But households are bearing down on debt, employment has been rising and business start-up is remarkably resilient in the face of all the odds.
Mr Feelgood is a man of many surprises. Keep your eyes peeled.