Business confidence among UK firms has seen its biggest drop since 1995 due to the government’s rhetoric on spending cuts, a survey suggests says the BBC.

This news item brings to mind an apt analogy in The Economist this week: Bagehot’s comparison of the England football team and the 2010 World Cup with the economy and national outlook:

[…] It is not too much of a stretch to relate the deflated build-up to the World Cup in England this time to the wider, sombre atmosphere. The team represents a people less certain than they were a few years ago that global greatness is their destiny, and much less sure that they can afford it. As politicians exhort them to cultivate austerity, the rampant hedonism that seemed amusing and enviable in the pre-credit-crunch years, and which super-rich footballers epitomised, now seems tasteless. Austerity may not have touched the players themselves, but it is catching up with many domestic football clubs. Several are owned by post-Soviet oligarchs or carpetbagging Americans, and some are burdened with perilous levels of debt.

An added aspect to the picture, an event which occurred after The Economist was published, is England goalkeeper Robert Green’s fumbling in the goalmouth during Saturday’s match against the USA to let in a goal and which led to an eventual result of one-all.

In effect, an own goal.

Hopefully, that’s where the analogy stops.