ISTO SERÁ PASSADO AO CRIVO MAIS TARDE OU AMANHÃ. ESTE ARTIGO MERECE DE FATO ATENÇÃO ESPECIAL.
HESELTINE DIZ QUE OS INGLESES SÃO RICOS DE MAIS E, POR ISSO, FALTA-LHES A AMBIÇÃO PARA A AVENTURA PARA BUSINESS E PARA O TRABALHO.
25 March 2013 Last updated at 02:56
Lord Heseltine's plans to rejuvenate city economies were accepted by his party
Heseltine: 'No national will to improve economy'
Lord Heseltine's plans to rejuvenate city economies were accepted by his party
Former Conservative party deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine has suggested that British people may be so wealthy that they lack the "national will" needed to secure an economic recovery.
He told the Independent it was "not essential" for the UK economy to improve: "It could keep drifting down".
He said one theory was that the richer people were, the less desire they had to improve their situation.
The chancellor has said problems were taking longer than expected to fix.
Last week in the Budget, Chancellor George Osborne insisted "we are, slowly but surely, fixing our country's economic problems".
His comments came just after he announced that the official forecast for growth in the UK economy had been halved. The Office for Budget Responsibility cut the forecast for this year from the 1.2% it predicted in December to 0.6%.
Lord Heseltine, whose plans to improve the economies of English cities other than London were accepted by the government this month, was asked by the Independent if it was essential to improve the economy.
He replied: "It's not essential. It doesn't need to. It can go on drifting down.
"There is no God-given rule saying you've got to have a well-performing economy. It could be an indifferent economy. It's a question of whether the national will is there; whether we want it. And the richer you get the less imperative there is."
Asked whether he believed poor growth stemmed from a lack of desire, Lord Heseltine replied: "It could be. I don't personally subscribe to that view but I don't discount it as a possible thought... I think there is in the nature of most people a desire to do something and to do it better, and do it to a degree of personal satisfaction."
'Ridiculous' comparisons
Lord Heseltine dismissed comparisons between the UK and fast-growing economies such as China.
China's economy grew at a pace of 7.8% last year, its weakest performance in 13 years. However, there have been indications that the world's second-largest economy may be rebounding from the recent slump.
"Maybe one of the problems of advanced economies is that people are sufficiently well off that they don't need to drive themselves any more," Lord Heseltine said.
"All these comparisons with China and India are ridiculous. I've just come back from India. You know why they've got to drive themselves - they've got real problems. While in this country there are people with problems, the vast majority of people have standards which are not comparable with the Third World."
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