Now Green Shoots On Dole Queues!

The government's pathetic attempt at confidence boosting con-tricks reached a new low today with lengthening dole queues prompting one minister to state the bleedin' obvious: "Things will get worse before it gets better".  Ministers are having a hard time softening up voters as disastrous economic news comes thick and fast but that doesn't stop them trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Beaming down from another planet, baroness business eats shoots and leaves with her ludicrous "green shoots of economic recovery". Housing minister, Margaret Bucket, can sees signs of an "upturn in the property market". 

The Orange Party, with a large dose of cynicism, observed earlier in the week: 

"What next? Gloomy jobless figures are out this week. So will employment ministers, with a warped sense of humour, tell voters there are signs unemployment is levelling off - at a staggering three million?"

Ministers didn't disappoint. Employment minister, Tony McNulty, said: "Unemployment will get worse before it gets better," adding, “a dynamic is still in the labour market, some people are still hiring”. Only he didn't say where.

Official unemployment has hit 1.92 million, the highest now since New Labour took power in 1997. But that figure does not include the tens of thousands of jobs cut since November and it uses the government's preferred methods of fiddling the dole figures, ignoring the thousands of non-jobs and using crafty ways of keeping people off the unemplyment list. 

The true figure is much much higher and figures which include the latest huge round of jobs cuts won't come out until next month. 

In the commons, an increasingly tired and drawn looking Brown had the gall to question the leader of the opposition on the economy, prompting Cameron to point that if Brown didn't know the answer, he should call a general election. 

The fear now is that international money-men will stop lending to borrowing Brown and the country will indeed go bankrupt. 

Brown clearly needs to spend more time with his family before it's too late, leaving others to sort out the mess of bankrupt Britain.