The British economy and Arsenal

Why is the British economy and Arsenal so similar? They are both top of the league.

In the latest Market survey of business activity and orders, the British economy is growing at a remarkably rapid 1.3% in the last three months of the year - which would be faster than any other rich developed economy growing significantly faster than Germany and the US and probably faster than Japan. If that estimated British growth rate is accurate and sustained, UK GDP in 2013 will rise over 3% - which is significantly faster than any mainstream economist is currently predicting and would be a return to growth rates we haven't enjoyed since the financial and economic crash of 2007-8.

So the question about the British economy is the same as the question about Arsenal. Is the current success built on solid foundations, is it sustainable? Probably the first thing to say, if you're an Arsenal supporter or a British citizen, is that any recovery will do, after six bleak years .But the worry would be that the economy and Arsenal are a bit thin in defense and attack.

This means that after the 2010 election, the hope of the government was that this would be a period of recovery different from all others in modern times, one led by exports and business investment, in order to reduce the UK's economic dependence on debt-fuelled consumer spending and economic activity linked to a booming housing market. The economy would be re balanced  so that we would gradually reduce the deficit between what we buy from the rest of the world versus what we sell abroad - a deficit that has put the debts of the UK on a rising trajectory for 30 years. It was similar to the hope of Arsenal that it could win the Premier League without spending record sums on world-class players, or paying those inflated wages of more than £100,000 a week.

Well, business investment plummeted in 2008 and has never properly recovered. And the gap between exports and imports has remained stubbornly wide. In fact in the first three months of the year, the UK's deficit with the rest of the world was a shocking 5.5% of GDP, before narrowing to a still too-wide 3.2% in the second quarter. The result has been a failure by the UK to restore economic output back to where it was in early 2008, which has contributed to a painful and persistent squeeze in living standards. And there has been an analogous absence of any trophies in the Emirates' cabinet, as a consequence of a policy decision not to splash the cash on superstars.

But 2013 has been a year of modest ideological shift by Wenger and Osborne.

Arsenal's Wenger relented and forked out £42m for the balletic and brilliant Ozil, and has allegedly smashed through the wage hierarchy at the club in the process. And the British chancellor belatedly concluded that it was highly unlikely that the UK economy would gain what economists call "lift-off momentum" without the traditional boost to the morale of British consumers from a reviving housing market. So George Osborne launched versions one and two of the Help to buy scheme, which provides many billions of pounds of taxpayer loans and guarantees for house construction and house purchases.