NADINE DORRIES: Spring is here - but when Cotswolds celebs are reduced to buying wine in Aldi you know there's a chill wind coming
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On Sunday morning, as the sun shone and the blackbirds sang, I found myself heading to a drinks party at the home of a great friend who, from now until the nights draw in, will hold regular such Sunday gatherings in his glorious Cotswolds garden.
The wrought iron patio table (no fake wicker for him) was heaving with oversized bottles of ice-cold – and very modish – Whispering Angel rose, Copper Lion Gin and a large jug of his famous Bloody Mary. Smaller bottles of Schweppes Tonic floated in a nearby bucket of iced water.
Dolcelatte cheese softened in China bowls as the melba toast crisped.
The ladies wore white jeans (me) or floral dresses topped with snazzy denim jackets.
It was official: this was the day the tights came off. Sunglasses and Panama hats were very much on.
I should have been full of the joys of spring – yet I was preoccupied by what I saw and heard.
The 16 or so guests were some of the most successful people one could meet, from a renowned surgeon to successful businessmen and women, celebrities and even the odd titled aristocrat. It’s fair to say that not one of them was short of a few bob.
As I drew up in my modest little car and found a place between the Range Rovers and Bentleys, I knew that I was possibly the poorest person attending, which was why some of the conversation surprised me.
Namely, the state of the economy and the impact rising prices were having on the lifestyles of even the wealthiest.
A renowned journalist and broadcaster who lives in London told me she was cutting out restaurant meals.
‘I can’t give up the theatre, it’s my passion but that’s it, no more eating out,’ she said. ‘Those days are well and truly over.’
The signs are everywhere. On my way to the party, I drove through the honey pot village of Chipping Campden and was taken by the number of properties for sale.
A local agent has told me that it’s as many as 38, that they’re not selling and she can’t remember the market being this slow since 2008.
‘Vendors think it’s still 2020 when 100,000 Londoners moved out here to escape Covid and sent prices sky high,’ she said.
‘Sellers are just not listening to our valuations but choosing the price they want and then, weeks later, asking us why their house isn’t selling. They are struggling to accept the reality of the situation.
‘I could knock £200,000 off some of the properties I have for sale and they still wouldn’t budge. It’s totally grim.’
When even the wealthiest in society have lost faith, you know we should be worried.
You could argue that the British economy has never fully recovered since the 2008 financial crash.
In the 17 years since then, we have absorbed repeated financial blows including Covid, the Liz Truss budget and the ongoing war in Ukraine with its long-lasting impact on energy and food prices.
But this Labour Government has made things so very much worse. From the moment they arrived last summer, they were talking the economy down, trampling on the shoots of growth they inherited from the Conservatives.
They trashed the economy when they should have been out batting for team GB, demonstrating sound and solid leadership from day one. They have let us all down.
Rachel Reeves’s disastrous autumn budget taxed jobs – so that firms are now reluctant to recruit.
It punished pensioners and parents who dare to send their children to independent schools. Even charities and hospices for the terminally sick and dying have been hit.
Enter Donald Trump with his punitive, backward-looking tariffs. Will this latest financial blow from our so-called friends across the Atlantic prove the final nail in our economic coffin?
If that really is the case, Keir Starmer must take some of the blame.
We wanted him to stand up and defend British interests, but what we got was kow-towing and forelock tugging.
Starmer and Reeves have announced policies they say will help British business, but we already know their puny efforts are like sending a mouse into the ring – to take on a lion.
Starmer should have been more like Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister, who has given world leaders a master class in what defending the national interest looks like.
It had long been my impression – perhaps ignorant – that it was only the less affluent who really paid attention when the economy slowed down – that the rich just kept buggering on.
Yet a recent survey by KPMG found as many as 72 per cent saying they were already eating out less, while more than half – 52 per cent – said they have cut their non-essential spending.
A fellow party guest opened my eyes: ‘The clever money will double down and hang onto it,’ he said.
‘They will instinctively stop spending, not buy the second home, cut down on holidays, shop in Aldi not Waitrose, that kind of thing. When you’ve sacrificed to make it, you want to hold onto it.
‘I’m giving up drinking good wine, I hear Aldi has a good range, I’ll be checking it out.’
A report from Bloomberg backs him up: Britons appear to be hunkering down.
The number of people saving money is unusually high with households putting away 11.3 per cent of their income in the first quarter of this year. That’s a level more normally associated with a period of recession – which is exactly what one economist after another is now predicting.
It matters because these are the people whose spending and investment can keep shops, restaurants and businesses going.
And it matters because for millions of less fortunate citizens, the prospect of a recession is disastrous.
Think of mothers who are also heading to Aldi, not to the alcohol racks but in search of food as they battle with the problem of how to feed a family when the cost of groceries is rising and their household income is not.
Britain’s stubborn 3 per cent inflation rate means that many paycheques are shrinking year by year.
Ordinary families are already struggling. And it won’t just be holidays they give up if things get much worse.
One nightmare memory of the 2008 crash is the number of homes which were repossessed with all the suffering involved: nearly 50,000 properties were seized in 2009.
‘I’m going to recycle last year’s summer clothes, the only thing I will buy new is my lipstick, I won’t give that up,’ said one party guest indignantly.
Yet for me, the most interesting comment came from the owner of a garden centre.
‘People will still come to us,’ he explained. ‘In Covid, even those whose income had been cut dead overnight would still come in to buy a plant. Watching it grow kept them sane and grounded. It kept us going.’
As the potted tulips turned their heads upwards to the sun and ice cubes chinked above the noise of the chatter, I felt a chill breeze.
There was a touch of summer in the air, but unless Starmer and Reeves up their game, it could be winter that is coming.
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