Economists are totally hopeless.

Economists are totally hopeless, they cannot make up their minds in the recession we are now in is going to be long or short and if we will have high inflation or deflation.

Well I predict the recession will be a long one. Financial Services is 31% of our GDP and the city of London will shrink over the next 5 years. We do not have any Natural resources like North Sea Oil that is going to help us. Our Manufacturing currently 13% of GDP is not going to grow dramatically, as we cannot compete with China and Asia's low employment costs. Some where along the line the Government and we as individuals will have to pay the large amounts of interest on our loans as well as try and pay them back. This will throttle back any recovery.
I can see us not recovering from recession for 5 to 10 years

As to deflation. I can see Oil, Energy and Food prices dropping from their highs, but we are not going to see any deflationary spiral on these essential items. In fact as the rest of the world comes out of recession faster than us these essential items will inflate.

As to none essential items, Cars, TV's etc. I can see these deflating with the world in recession, but again we are going to be in recession for longer and these things will then cost more as the pound will still be suffering.