Britain is often accused of being a rather pessimistic old place. We’re a nation of glasses half empty rather than glasses half full.
But there is something else in us Brits that we’d do well to remember at the moment. The spirit embodied in the famous government poster from 1939 when Britain went into World War II.
Keep calm and carry on.
As the Monetary Policy Committee debated the economy this morning no doubt they had to hold their nerve and not panic in the face of waves of weak economic data. Many were clamouring for another round of quantitative easing to help boost anaemic growth.
The prognosis for growth is not good. House prices look like they are sliding again and the Eurozone still looks worryingly shaky. Consumers are not spending as much as they might despite cheap rates. Unemployment could be better and investment by companies is less bullish than the government would like.
But in spite of discussions about a double dip recession, we are not yet quite back in the doldrums.
As we saw in the aftermath of August’s riots, there is another type of Brit in each of us. Rather than giving in to the anarchy that ransacked our streets, the clean up brigade of appalled citizens who care about their communities and care about responsibility in society came out in force to mop up the devastation left in the riots’ wake.
The stoicism displayed by people in the face of adversity struck a chord with the mortgage market for me.
It is true that mortgage approvals are still stumbling and transactions in the housing market are not as strong as we might hope.
But rather than sit with our heads in our hands which ultimately achieves very little, it seems the mortgage market is trying quite hard to keep calm and carry on.
Lenders are cutting their rates and offering some brilliant deals for borrowers. While the amount of lending being done is perhaps less brilliant, the very fact that lenders are offering more appealing products gives brokers a reason to pick up the phone to their clients and talk about remortgaging opportunities and protection for their finances in the future.
The August riots were a stark reminder of how quickly law and order can slide into anarchic disarray. But they were also a reminder of how quickly recovery can be achieved if the will is there.
The credit crunch, crisis and fallout have wreaked devastation across the mortgage and property markets in Britain but it seems that we will not be destroyed nor dispirited.
