Source: TOI

LONDON: As you walk through the central part of this great metropolis, along Oxford Street, through Bloomsbury, past the British Museum, into Covent Garden, the Theatre District and Leicester Square, you fail to notice the limp that hobbles the British economy. The place bustles, as tourists jostle with locals on sidewalks and cafes and shops, well after the end of the season and the summer Olympic Games.

Britain’s GDP contracted by a cumulative 1.3% for three successive quarters this year. Unemployment remains high at 8.1% and you can overhear gloomy chatter among the regulars at popular pubs. A shop in Covent Garden sells tee shirts for tourists showing a picture of Karl Marx, with a frown, growling: “I Told You So”.

A glimmer of sunlight may be breaking through the clouds, believe the optimists. Inflation has declined and wages have begun to creep up. The job market, says The Economist magazine, is strengthening. If Europe holds up, Britain will recover.

But it’s what the British Isles have given the world over the past five centuries, from the dawn of the Scottish-English-Irish-Welsh Renaissance to our times, that you recall with wonder as you enter the National Portrait Gallery. From the days of the Tudor monarchs to the Beatles, Britain has been a fount of ideas and global trends.

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