The week Labour lost the next election

Telegraph
"Last week's opinion polls have shocked even the Tories in the uniformity of their hostility to the Government. In the ComRes poll in Monday's Independent, Labour fell below 30 points for the first time since September. In The Guardian, an ICM survey had the Tories on 44, up six points since last month, with Labour trailing on 32. The YouGov poll in Friday's Telegraph indicated a similar lead for the Conservatives (43 versus Labour's 32) and – no less important – a seven point advantage for David Cameron over Brown on perceived economic competence. ...But they do suggest, strongly, that a collective decision has been made. ....The voters know it. They see it in their bank statements, the falling value of their properties, the spectre of unemployment lurking at a million doors, the collapse of businesses large and small. On their television screens they see refinery workers striking over the use of foreign labour. Wasn't it only yesterday that Britain was waving migrant workers across its borders to fill the jobs created by a growing economy?"
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Government needs to prove it can pay back debt, Lord Mandelson admits

Government to print more money in £50bn bid to end lending freeze

Daily Mail
"The fund lays the groundwork for so-called quantitative easing-style tactics, where money supply is increased.But the plan stops short of pure quantitative easing and is instead seen as a potentially crucial new monetary policy tool to help bring inflation back in line when interest rates cannot be cut further."
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Comment: "Quantitative easing" has been in progress for some time by Mr Brown
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So Alastair Darling might just like to hang on to the jargon 'quantitative easing', which he's now given the Bank of England the green light to do – because it masks the inconvenient truth that, yes, the government is indeed printing money. :Dr Eamonn Butler (January 2009)

A question for Gordon Brown: whatever happened to prudence?

Telegraph
"...my 18-month old daughter, will be graduating from university by the time our national debt returns to pre-recession levels, according to the gloomy forecasts from IFS. Like the Treasury Select Committee the IFS appears to have little faith in the government's forecasts."
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Alistair Darling has pulled out of the World Economic Forum, within hours of being warned that the UK faces a worse recession than any other major country in the world.
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Gordon Brown is a busted flush – and he's taking us down with him
"...Worse still, our Armed Forces are expected to police the world's hell holes on a budget (£33 billion) that is just one fifth of what we hand out for "social protection" (£169 billion). The military is showered in warm words, but suffers from a freeze on real (inflation-adjusted) spending. Of all Labour's wicked deceits, this is the one I find most offensive."

Britain's recession will be deepest, IMF warns

Telegraph
"Britain's recession will be deeper than any other major country this year, the International Monetary Fund warned today as the banking crisis continues to send shudders through the rest of the economy. ...The new forecast deals a blow to Prime Minister Gordon Brown who has insisted that the UK is no more exposed to the sweeping global downturn than other economies. Critics have argued that the intensity of the decade-long housing boom, a failure of regulation and the size of losses accumulated by UK banks have left Britain deeper in the mire."
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Taxes to soar by £20BILLION as IMF warns Britain faces deeper recession than any other country
'If the public finances evolve as the Treasury hopes, this tightening would have to remain in place until the early 2030s before debt returns below the ceiling of 40 per cent of national income Gordon Brown set as one of his two fiscal rules in 1997,' said the report." (Daily Mail)
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Now Gordon Brown's own MPs brand him a 'headless chicken' over recession
"Labour ministers and MPs have echoed David Cameron's jibe that Gordon Brown is behaving 'like a headless chicken' over the recession, it emerged today." (Daily Mail)

Car firms get £2 billion loan support

Telegraph
"The Government has unveiled a long awaited package of support for the car industry worth £2 billion amid warnings of a "catastrophe" for the sector with the loss of tens of thousands of jobs."

Hummmm.....

"However, some have argued that making it easier to buy cars will mainly aid foreign manufacturers who account for 80 per cent of Britain's cars".

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Now Government delivers £2.3bn package for Britain's struggling car industry
"Britain's beleaguered car industry became latest recipient of Government help this afternoon when Lord Mandleson unveiled a multi-billion pound rescue package.
.....'That this wave of panic-stricken announcements has pledged the taxpayers' credit for billions - tens of billions - of pounds, and someone's said to BERR [the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform], "We cannot afford anything but modest loan guarantees with all these provisos about how you give it out".
(Daily Mail)

Rioting Greeks, angry Germans and why the euro may well collapse

Daily Mail
"This month Portugal, Spain and Greece have seen their credit ratings downgraded. It is likely the ratings agencies will hit Ireland's next. They will then find it not only more expensive to borrow money, but more difficult to find any investors willing to lend to them."
...In the days before the euro, when Italy had the lire and Greece had the drachma and so on, a country in such trouble could devalue its currency to help increase its exports and take pressure off its jobs. Escape from the euro would also allow a country to regain control over its own monetary policy."

Voters lose faith in bailouts and VAT cut

Independent
"Tories extend lead to 15 per cent as economic turmoil causes Labour collapse, 'Independent' poll reveals"
.."Forty-nine per cent of people doubt whether the Government's attempts to solve the banking crisis will work. The reservations are shared across the political spectrum: by a margin of 48 to 43 per cent, Labour voters do not believe in the measures on the banks."

Financial crisis: just how big is Britain's toxic debt?

Telegraph
"An army of accountants is combing through the books, trying to establish just how much the toxic assets of the bailed-out banks are actually worth. At stake, says the Government, is the future of Britain's economy.
..In other words, until the number-crunching is done, there is no prospect of an end to the crisis. "The problem is that we don't really know just where these bad assets are, and the banks are not going to 'fess up," explains Peter Spencer, professor of economics at York University. "As things stand, it is a near-bottomless pit, and no one knows how smelly the stuff at the bottom is."

Unbelievable Britain

Daily Mail
80 foreign murderers welcomed to Britain: Albanian killers allowed to stay despite being on Interpol 'wanted' list
"The scandal came to light when Albania's chief of police complained that 100 criminals from his country have been granted British citizenship and now live here."
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150,000 foreigners swell UK workforce: Record number get permits as Britons lose jobs
"Tory MP Nicholas Soames and his Labour counterpart Frank Field, who jointly chair the cross-party group on Balanced Migration, said the Government had to ensure British workers got the 'first chance' to apply for any new vacancy."

Britain on the brink of an economic depression, say experts

Telegraph
"Families must brace themselves for a slump of far greater severity and longevity than the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s, they warned. They said the current crisis will be of a scale to rival the biggest peace-time crisis in modern history — the Great Depression."

Tumbling sterling brings a warning of $1.20 rate

Daily Mail

"The pound dived to a 23-year low of $1.3503 after GDP figures showed the British economy shrank by a worse than expected 1.5 per cent in the last quarter. Sterling also hit a low against the Japanese yen of 118.90 yen, a level not seen since 1971 when fixed exchange rates ended. The beleaguered British currency was trading down 0.28 of a cent against the euro at €1.0632."

UK recession: It's now officially the worst since 1980 (So far)

Telegraph
"Today’s figures are the final nail in the coffin for Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s claim to have ‘ended boom and bust’; the United Kingdom economy is most definitely bust at the moment,"said Charles Davis at the Centre for Economics and Business Research said. "
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Sky News
Vince Cable, Lib Dem Treasury spokesman
"Britain is exceptionally vulnerable and one of the reasons we're exceptionally vulnerable is the Government allowed a big binge of personal borrowing, much of it related to the boom in the housing market which got completely out of control, and that was a very British problem. In addition to all the problems that are happening globally, we have a banking system which is exceptionally large and has frankly has been appallingly mismanaged and its difficulties are now feeding into the UK economy."
Labour MP John McDonnell, Left Economics Advisory Panel
"The Government has consistently failed to recognise the seriousness of the light of the UK economy and has consistently failed to recognise the need for radical measures to tackle the crisis. Today's figures not only confirm a recession, but point to a depression."
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Brown admits: 'I never saw it coming,' as figures confirm we're in the worst recession for 28 years. (Daily Mail)

COMMENT: Gordon Brown WAS warned by the Bank of England in 2006 about a possible 'Credit Crunch', AND the effect it would have on the economy.