Recession Will Turn To Depression

The doom and gloom of recession is finally on us but it's time to move onwards and downwards. It won't be long before the recession turns into a deep Depression and then we'll really have something to worry about. Time to dust ourselves down, pick ourselves up and start all over again - with a new government.

The Orange Party has never bought into this recession definition - two or more quarters of reduced GDP. When you are up against statistics, it's so easy to sprinkle a little bit of financial fairy dust around to stave off the day of reckoning. 

A recession is easy to spot. The country’s economy enters a period of negative growth, real income declines, unemployment rises and industrial production wavers. Sounds familiar? It should. It's been happening for ages, probably since last April. 

Brown's BBC has been a bit too keen over the months to ram a downturn down our throats. And when those two get together, you can smell a rat. 

So today we finally got used to the R-word and the BBC finally changed its downturn logo and used 'UK recession' - something ITV News has been running with for weeks. 

The BBC is trying its best at political bias with a sycophantic interview with Brown on the Today programme and BBC on-line "news" doing its best to avoid political balance with hardly a Vince or Dave to be seen. 

What next for the spinners to try to wriggle out of? They've already got their eye on the D-Word, Depression, which strikes fear into the heart of the government. That will have to be handled with kid gloves. 

So for a  goverment so beloved of its tick box culture, here's a handy check box for a Depression: 

Abnormal increases in unemployment, restriction of credit, shrinking output and investment, numerous bankruptcies, reduced amounts of trade and commerce, highly volatile currency devaluations, price deflation, people forced to dispose of tangible assets to fund every day living, declining business activities, falling prices, public fear and panic, despair and despondency.

And all that too sounds eerily familiar. We're heading for a Depression of gigantic proportions.

The most infamous Depression was the Great Depression, which began in the US in the 1930s after years of a debt-fuelled boom. Recovery took decades.   

Then the public's spirits were lifted by the stars of the silverscreen and feel-good musical movies. Fred and Ginger tried to pick everyone up. Obama cribbed Dorothy Fields' lyrics for his inauguration speech:

Nothing's impossible, I have found,


For when my chin is on the ground,


I pick myself up, dust myself off,


Start all over again.

Don't lose your confidence if you slip,


Be grateful for a pleasant trip,


And pick yourself up, dust yourself off,


Start all over again.

The best cure for recession depression is a breath of fresh air, a change of scenery and a large dose of confidence. Or in this case, a change in government, which the country can confidently unite behind, to start to get us out of this mess. 

If there was ever a time for a general election, to dust ourselves down and start all over again, then this is it.