Contrarian: Are you part of the problem?

What a difference a year makes. Last autumn, you may recall, we were all holding our heads in our hands, lamenting the sorry state of the UK economy.

Flash forward 12 months and suddenly everything has changed. The eurozone is still a mess, but we are now excitedly talking about housing bubbles and the possibility of rising interest rates. Yet lurking in the background is a sense that all is not quite right with this recovery. The economy has certainly turned a corner, but virtually everyone I talk to thinks this recovery is a rather strange, muted affair. Crucially, many SMEs I talk to refuse to commit more money to capex and labour hiring until they see some evidence the really big corporates are ‘properly’ spending their ample c...