Cheap Imports Claim Another Retail Victim

Cheap Chinese imports and City greed have forced another High Street casualty as fashion brand Viyella is the latest to bite the dust. Analysts are quick to blame the biting recession for the casualties but with a flood of cheap imports on the market and business models based on borrowing, it's no wonder retail firms are going bust. 

The womenswear company Viyella has become the latest long-established company to call in the administrators. Viyella, which employs about 450 people, follows hard on the heels of Adams Kids and Waterford Wedgwood pottery, not forgetting tired old Woolies.

The closures highlight too well the plight of UK manufacturing which has been decimated over the years as the New Labour government ruthlessly encouraged cheap imported goods to boost the false feel-good factor. 

Brands, once a mainstay of the UK economy, were swallowed up in obscure take-overs, as new owners simply traded off the once respected names. 

A girl can't get enough tops for sure but the amount of clothing, leisurewear, soft furnishings and household goods now on sale on the High Street is staggering. That's apart from the fierce competition from supermarkets and superstores, all chasing dwindling customers.

For years the City fat cats have reaped the profits and diversified. Now sympathetic words from directors are no comfort to the thousands who face losing their jobs as once iconic brands go to the wall.  

Any pretence of ploughing profits back into the business disappeared as time and again the brands expanded on the back of cheap imports, propped up by a borrowing binge. 

Clothing jobs were once crucial to UK manufacturing. Then, with an eye on boosting profits, they slowly switched to using slave labour in China and the Far East. With manufacturing gone it would not be long before the retail side followed.

The jobs at Viyella are the latest on what has been a bad day all around for UK retail  jobs. Marks and Spencer announced it was closing 27 stores and cutting back at head office, with the loss of 1,230 jobs and with plunging sales is Debenhams and Next next?

The Orange Party has said time and again that the key to economic revival lies in UK manufacturing. 

Sadly even with a change in political will, it would take years to rebuild a manufacturing base. And even that stands little chance of success, while shops chase the same customers with an eye on shareholders profits and simply import the same cheap tat from China, then desperately try to out compete each other. 

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Little Green Men Won't Save Brown

Deluded Brown is pinning his hopes on little green men to save his skin after digging himself into a fiscal stimulus hole, promising a new deal on jobs on which he cannot deliver and strutting around a G20 summit exposed as a con. 

With no green shoots of recovery to cling on to,  it's time to play the green' card, so Brown once again goes green, promising this month's budget will plot a "green" route to economic recovery". Little green men washed down with greenwash may well come to his rescue but only in his dreams. 

"A philosophical man down on his luck and running out of time" is how the headline in the Independent sums it all up, after an interview with Andrew Grice.

Brown's  empty suit was laid bare as he  told the newspaper what everyone knows. The cupboard is bare, the country bankrupt and there ain't room for a further painful fiscal stimulus on borrowed time and borrowed money.

Instead with sleep-inducing naivety, he said the April 22 Budget would be "a job creator, a quality of life improver, and an environment-enhancing measure."

But Brown's greenwash doesn't wash. It reveals a deeper problem as B-day approaches. 

In a refreshing bout of frankness his own hapless chancellor Darling has been forced to back-track on a misguided and misleading pre-budget report forecast and forced to admit what everyone else knew that the recession will be much worse than he expected.

And to top it all, the bank of England governor is breathing down his neck. As the Orange Party noted at the time, that leaves the Brown with little wriggle room on a road to nowhere. 

Brown has previously called for an international "green new deal" to stimulate growth and has said that moving the UK to a low-carbon economy would create 400,000 new jobs over the next eight years. But that is then, this is now.

Trials of electric cars, a roadside network of vehicle-charging points and incentives for environmentally-friendly carmakers are among the whizzo plans churned out in a half-baked eco-daze.

Half a million green jobs over eight years - that's 50,000 a year. A drop in the jobless ocean with 3m unemployed. 

The G20 summit has been exposed as a sham. A clever piece of grandstanding footwork which cut no ice with the Orange Party and many others who saw through the $1 trillion as nothing more than a smoke and mirrors magic trick. 

But one good thing that did come out of that G20 mess was that talk of a global fiscal stimulus is now dead in the water. 

As Simon Jenkins in the Guardian puts it: "It put 'global fiscal stimulus' back in the statist box and said to the citizens of the world: we have made a total mess of your economies and are leaving it to you to get out as best you can. Now those citizens have a chance."

Once again it has to be shouted from the rooftops ad infinitum, ad nauseam. The key to long term UK economic recovery is UK manufacturing, now at its lowest ebb since 1981. 

If Brown can save his banking buddies then why not UK industry and the thousands of jobs which go with it? 

UK industrial output, accounts for nearly one fifth of of the country's economic output. It's now slumped at the fastest rate in nearly 30 years. But UK manufacturing was already on its last legs as the government deliberately switched to the  now discredited economic boom growth based on their greedy pals in  the City. 

Output  slumped by 2.6 per cent in January, compared with the previous month, double the expected fall. This pushed the annual rate of decline to 11.4 per cent, the worst fall since 1981.

But any talk of saving UK manufacturing cuts into political dogma with a nasty whiff of protectionism. 

Exactly the kind of protectionism that's already being practised by 17 out of the 20 countries at the G20 summit and being used effectively by the French and Germans. 

Brown has dug himself into a hole from which there is no escape. Building up false hopes for the G20 summit which could not deliver on a highly spun false promise. Taking his eye off the ball of the domestic economy he strutted around saving the world with his New World Order and plotting his exit strategy with the IMF. 

All that's left now are a few hollow and boring eco-droppings. 

With the last gasp of a dying man, Brown told the Independent: "It is not just what we do to give real help to people and business now, but about setting a path for the future as well ... We always take into account both what we need to do now and what is the best future for the fiscal position."

Hardly the words of comfort and cheer, inspiration or confidence needed now for the thousands of people worried sick about their jobs, their livelihood, their businesses and how they are going to make ends meet.

The April Budget is the last roll of the dice before June's crucial local and Euro elections and the long-awaited general election. With that kind of meaningless grandstanding 'green' rhetoric, Brown has blown it. 

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Dithering Mandy Drives Car Workers Nuts

Wheeler-dealing dithering over the future of Vauxhall has left anxious workers facing the bread-line as Mandelson's grandstanding petty politics makes a mockery of protecting jobs while UK manufacturing is left to go to the wall. 

Mandelson and Brown are caught in a mess of their own making as workers and trade union leaders at the threatened car plants round on the government while the odd couple posed for pictures for the Downing Street album (above). 

Waving his Chamberlain scrap of "peace for time" paper, show-business secretary Mandelson was "optimistic that Vauxhall can be saved", in a deal to rescue GM's European businesses. But here's the rub: "Of course it will involve change, there is excess capacity." Translating NewLabour double speak that means your job is on the line, mate. 

UK plants in Ellesmere Port and Luton have already been cut back to the bone. There's no slack left. Even a fool can see that one of the plants will have to go as new owners take a pan-European take on the future and follow the money trail of Berlin backed loans. 

While Mandy fannied around, Germany got in quick sewing up the deal to protect its workers and the crucial manufacturing which is at the heart of the German economy.

But try that here? No fear. What is it with a so-called 'Labour' government which props up big business and puts people at the bottom of the heap? 

A so-called 'Labour' government which cannot bear to bring itself to use the dreaded N-word even for a short-term fix.

At the heart is Mandelson, scheming and spinning around with his eye on the fat chance of votes and elections. More happy to swan around with airy fairy notions of trade while others EU countries run rings around him. 

Happy to swan around sticking the words skills and enterprise in front of everything as a smokescreen for jobs cuts.

Content to sell-off Royal Mail when the 'Network Mail' solution is staring him in the face with a not for profit state-owned company until the good times roll again. 

Content to let the once proud car industry go to the wall and with it thousands of jobs which hides the pain and suffering beneath. Jobs mean people struggling to make ends meet, feeding mouths and feeding mortgages, while Mandy lords it up in political La-La Land.

Germany has agreed a deal with Canadian car parts maker Magna to take over most of GM Europe, which owns Vauxhall and Germany-based Opel backed by a Russian bank and Russian truck-maker GAZ.

With about half of GM Europe's 50,000 workers employed in Germany that makes sense but what about the 5,500 jobs here in the UK and the thousands in the supply chains?

For the government Vauxhall could not have come at a worse time and one would have thought they'd pull out all the stops. After all, Euro elections are around the corner and everyone's thoroughly pissed off with EU states who say one thing and then merrily look after their own lot behind this country's back. And those green shoots of recovery won't look to good when word gets round that Luton has to close down. 

But even Mandy's dalliance with Russian billionaire Ivor Loadasmoneyski cut no ice as Magna's Russian backers found it easier to do business with the German government rather than a piddling little plotting politician in a weak-kneed excuse for a government. 

UK car manufacturing is in the doldrums. Who can afford to buy a new car or be forced to take out another crippling loan in the middle of economic recession depression? But saving one UK car industry with a few billion quid is a drop in the ocean to the obscene amount of cash pumped in to prop up the banks and New Labour's greedy pals in the city.

What's a few billion when tens of billions are being squandered on a useless NHS computer and a bloody, wasteful war in Afghanistan. 

Spend a few bob, buy up the plants and protect the jobs. Stick a Union Flag badge on the front, sell them cheap and screw the competition. Mothball and short-time working sure but keep the plants ticking over and use this as an opportunity to begin the much-needed training and apprenticeship schemes for when eventually the country is back on its feet. 

Subsidising car manufacturing and the workers is cheaper and more dignified than forcing poor down trodden souls to look for none existent jobs and handed a dole cheque at the end of the week while manufacturing plants are left to rot. That's what the rest of the world is doing anyway albeit covertly.

The country is left with another missed opportunity for beleaguered Brown and his spinning business secretary and the workers at Luton and Ellesmere Port are left with a very uncertain future. 

Picture: Brown and Mandelson make the most of their Downing Street photo opportunity while they can

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Printing Money Is A Recipe For Disaster

Conflicting inflation figures left some confused. The borrowing debt is set to run into trillions of pounds. The government is set to start 'printing money'. Brown is a victim of his own economic spin. His past false boom years are coming back to haunt him. 

Lies, deceit and spin go hand in hand with the New Labour project but it's in the death throes of the disaster of the economy where the public feel it most. 

Brown and Downing Street have tried every trick in the book to play down the crisis because to admit the truth is to admit past mistakes. There are signs the 'narrative' is changing but it's too late for all that now. 

The real economy is already deflating. Printing money will just make matters worse.

The Retail Price Index (RPI) which includes housing costs is at a 49-year low of 0.1%. But the government's preferred Consumer Price Index (CPI) is stuck at 3%. The RPI has taken a dive because of falling property prices and sinking mortgage interest payments. 

Grave misjudgements were made in the past over which inflation figure to use. Now the Bank is being forced to target CPI to dig the country out of a hole. 

But CPI will catch up later in the year with heavy discounting which is likely to put both measures of inflation into negative deflation territory. 

Back in 2003 as chancellor, Brown switched the inflation target from RPI to the more accommodating CPI.

With house prices soaring, it made sense to spin a measure of inflation that excluded property. And that would allow the Bank of England to cut interest rates.

If the Bank had been allowed to target RPI then interest rates would have remained higher.

Either way, the inflation slump leaves the country dangerously close to outright deflation, with reports the Bank of England is to begin the abhorrent and disreputable method of 'printing money' within weeks, as a quick fix. 

Any government which has to resort to 'printing money' is on its beam ends, with the threat of a new bout of inflation always lurking round the corner.

Inflation will rise while the economy continues to stagnate. The toxic mix of high inflation and near-zero growth leads to 'stagflation'. Brown's government will be the laughing stock of the world. 

The country is hopelessly in debt and borrowing is at a record high. But the government still wants to 'print money' to fund a reckless borrowing binge and ludicrous public spending spree. Sooner or later a new government will have to confront the underlying problems in the economy.

The Orange Party believes the route out of this economic mess is easy to see but because of its past record, impossible for this government to follow. 

There's must be an end to reckless borrowing which will saddle people with debt for decades to come. Hugely expensive white elephants, vanity and legacy projects must be scrapped. UK manufacturing, which is the key survival, must be boosted and supported to kick start the economy, with proper jobs, not the New Deal sham. 

A recent C4 documentary, Dispatches, saw Brown's former trade minister, Lord Digby Jones, despair at the dire state of fiddled jobs figures and blatant, totally meaningless jobs propaganda, while the manufacturing heart of the country is being ripped out. 

Jones is in no doubt: "Brown borrows billions to bail out the banks, he is letting manufacturing fall into an abyss." 

While other countries were protecting their manufacturing skills base, here the New Labour project saw the future wealth in creative and emerging technologies - and the City. Oh dear. 

The recession depression will last for a decade or more. A government, any government, has to  take steps now to preserve jobs, skills and factories or, as Jones warns, "we could blight an entire generation with long-term unemployment and the economic balance of Britain will not be sustainable."

Instead, the government flounders and flannels around printing money and borrowing more as its only escape route, trying to make a shiny silk purse out of an old sow's ear.  

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Germans Save World From Brown

Brown won't be saving the world at today's EU summit, instead he'll be forced to save his own skin, as Germany wiped the grin off his face, slamming borrowing Brown's economic plans as 'crass' and 'breathtaking'.

Downing Street's rapid rebuttal claims Germany is 'out of step' but it is Brown who is out of step and out of touch with reality.

Like many, the Orange Party rolled around with mirth as Flash Gordon told the commons he'd saved the world. He's having a laugh ... is he having a laugh? Then the awful truth sank in. Brown actually believes all the crap his lord and master Mandelson is feeding him.

The attack came from an unlikely source, Germany's finance minister and economist, Peer Steinbruck. That cannot be dismissed as a right-wing Conservative rant, because Steinbruck is from the centre left - a social democrat - here he'd fit in nicely with New Labour.

Steinbrück's attack struck a chord. The Orange Party has long believed the prime minister's borrowing binge solution is a sham. More to do with political advantage than economics. A way of digging both Brown and Bush out of the economic hole of their own making.

What did we get in the leaked, pre-budget election Budget? A piddling little stunt to cut VAT and a cunning plan to "toss around billions", causing record-breaking national debt and a burden on the UK economy for a generation.

Steinbruck is in no doubt the government's plans are ineffective and expensive.

"Are you really going to buy a DVD player because it now costs £39.10 instead of £39.90? All this will do is raise Britain's debt to a level that will take a whole generation to work off ...The switch from decades of supply-side politics all the way to a crass Keynesianism is breathtaking."

The Orange Party believes the key to UK prosperity is manufacturing. But for a decade the government has allowed manufacturing to rot, preferring instead to switch to an economy based on the financial institutions of the City. Only perhaps pharmaceuticals have survived in any strength.

Not so in Germany, which is the biggest manufacturer and exporter in the world. A strong manufacturing base creates real jobs and pumps real cash into the economy and helps Germany weather the economic storm.

A reliance on cheap shoddy imports from China made with slave labour in appalling conditions was a high price to pay for false prosperity. Pumping billions into the coffers then going with a begging bowl to the same country to borrow billions at high interest is a topsy-turvy was of running an economy and a country.

Downing Street spinners reckon Germany "was in a minority position and out of step with most other countries on how to deal with the looming recession". But if a powerful manufacturing country like Germany with a sensible finance minister reckons Brown is talking crap - then it is Brown who is 'out of step', not the other way round.

At the heart is the stark economic fact that it was a decade of borrowing which caused the current financial mess.

As Steinbruck said: "When I ask about the origins of the crisis, economists I respect tell me it is the credit-financed growth of recent years and decades. Isn't this the same mistake everyone is suddenly making again, under all the public pressure?"

12pm UPDATE: Government ministers and supporters have been rallying around their beleaguered boss. But even Downing Street's mouthpiece, Nick Robinson (bless) isn't his usual BBC Brown self: "There is, dare I suggest, another perfectly plausible theory. Mr Steinbruck believes what he says and does agree rather more with Mr Cameron than with Mr Brown, even though they come from the opposite ends of the political spectrum." Just what is he trying to say?

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3% Isn't Enough For Deep Recession

Slashing interest rates to 3% is a desperate measure for desperate times. But it won't go far enough to stave off a deepening recession. The Bank of England has seen sense but it could be too little too late. 

Both the government and the BBC made a big mistake by flagging up the economic crisis as a cosy little global "downturn". 

That gave people a false sense of security and sent a confusing message when everyone, except the Bank of England, could see the economy was falling around their ears. 

But spinning that soft line, helped to deflect criticism away from Brown's 'boom and bust' and the guy who caused the economic mess in the first place. 

Now the stark truth has dawned and at last the Bank of England has seen some sense. It is not inflation that's the economic bogy man for the moment - it's that recession where everything grinds to a halt. 

The message sent out today by the Bank of England was loud and clear but in the past it's been confusing. At least now there's a clear signal to cut the rate to its lowest since the 1950s. 

But even a one and a half a percent cut won't do the trick. The downturn/recession is starting to bite hard. A much deeper rate cut may be needed and, if coupled with properly funded tax cuts, that may give people and the country the break they need.

Reluctant banks will have to be forced to pass on the rate to existing home owners, credit card and loan customers. Those looking for a mortgage or credit still have to find someone willing to lend the money and take on the risk. 

The key to economic survival is UK manufacturing. But that has been decimated by the government over the past decade as it saw the future in a now discredited financial services industry based on the City. 

Cutting the interest rate will give a much needed boost to manufacturing and small businesses. But only if rates come down and GDP increases in tandem, will the economy start to speed up. This rate cut will take an age to work through, while GDP just gets worse.

With any cut in interest rate there's a big downside. In the past, it's meant easy money and a borrowing boom, but now people are keeping their belts tightened. Any sign of rising inflation has to be tackled immediately. Savers will be hit. A lower rate means it's more expensive to buy goods and services from abroad. 

The whole of Brown and New Labour's economic model has been based on buying in cheap goods and services from such places as China and the Far East, helping create the mythical boom years and the feel-good factor. 

Just how far interest rates will have to drop is a sure sign of just how deep and long lasting the recession is going to be. 

If banks can be given a huge bail-out why not use some of that borrowed cash for tax cuts and breaks to help the pocket. Just how any tax cut is funded is the billion dollar question.

It will take more than this one and a half percent cut to get things really moving again.

Some economists believe it will have to go much, much further to kick start the domestic economy. The days of zero interest rates may not be too far ahead.

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You're Living In Fantasy Land, Darling

So the economy is well placed to deal with current 'difficulties', is it, Darling? The chancellor is living in his own little fantasy world, out of touch with reality and following his boss's mantra, as the country pays the price of a decade of follies.

Is that the same economy where the government stood by and deliberately allowed the UK manufacturing base to go to the wall, while manufacturing in countries like Germany and Japan were encouraged to flourish and go from strength to strength? 

Is that the same economy where the government placed such a 'light touch' on credit and borrowing, to deliberately create the 'feel good factor' which is now coming home to roost in a debt culture with disastrous consequences?

Is that the same economy which removed the financial checks on credit and loans and allowed the money lenders to adopt dodgy business models, with no regulations, until Northern Rock came crashing down around your ears?

Is that the same economy, where government spending has been allowed to get out of hand, with billions of pounds squandered on silly schemes just to support your half-baked domestic and foreign policies? 

Is that the same economy where the government sold-off most of the gold reserves at a knock-down price and has spent the last ten years borrowing to create 'easy money', to dig itself out of an economic hole, while the true cost has been kept off the public accounts books with smoke and mirrors? 

Speaking at a news conference today, ahead of Brown's grilling by MPs, chancellor Darling said: "For the last ten years we have had strong growth - although we are going through a hard time, our economy is better placed now than it ever was to deal with these problems."

Go on, blame it all on the global economy again, Darling. 

The truth is we never had a strong economy. We just lived in an economic fantasy world. And now we are paying the price.

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Why Beijing Can Stuff Its Olympics

Peering through the pea-souper for today's opening ceremony at the Bird's Nest stadium, it's hard to see the sport for the politics and the poverty, as the Olympics gets underway in Beijing.

The games of shame, is the biggest act of political propaganda since Hitler highjacked the Olympics in 1936.

Bush is there for today's opening ceremony. Brown is due there and an army of freeloaders, outnumbering Team GB by two-to-one. All sucking up to the Chinese authorities. 

Unlike Bush, Brown sees China as an economic magic bullet. 

Brown needs the huge flood of cheap Chinese imports to artificially keep down the cost of living and create the false feel-good factor which has been the hallmark of his economy, And he needs China's cash to invest in our banks and industry. 

The result is cheap and throw-away products, workers forced to churn them out in appalling conditions, real poverty, massive industrial pollution and the decimation of the UK manufacturing industry.

China is happy to oblige and demolish people's homes while the country disappears in a thick blanket of industrial pollution.

Big profits and global corporate sponsorship are at the heart of the Olympics - all orchestrated by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Sally Jenkins in the Washington Post is in no doubt what this Olympics is really all about: 

"It's about 12 major corporations and their panting ambitions to tap into China's 1.3 billion consumers. The International Olympic Committee is nothing more than a puppet for its corporate partners, without whom there would be no Games. These major sponsors pay the IOC's bills for staging the Olympics to the tune of $7 billion per cycle"

The robotic display at the opening ceremony ignores the thousands driven out of their homes to make way for the Olympic spectacle and a state police keeping the population under the oppressive rule of the regime.

The appalling human rights record and oppression in Tibet, is highlighted only by a few brave protesters.

The Beijing Olympics costs China an estimated £33 billion to stage. A small price for the authorities to pay for propaganda, to mark the emergence of China as a world player. 

In four years time, it's set to happen all over again, in London. But the UK cannot afford such extravagance and enormous security costs. London 2012, is set to become a crippling, financial disaster. Lessons should be learnt from Beijing - but probably will be ignored. 

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Dole Queues Leave Labour Down In Dumps

Dire dole queues, the economy in the doldrums and New Labour down in the polls and down in the dumps. A fitting end to a fag-end government's 13 years of failure. But a miserable end to a disastrous decade of Borrowing Brown's busted economy with a country on its last legs. Voters have a choice - someone who'll fix it or fudge it.

Unemployment rises to 2.5m. Inflation rate rises to 3.4%. The economy "to stay in the doldrums". A bitter blow for a bleak Brown world in the final fortnight of the election race.

The Orange Party has never been one to fan the flames of false optimism or mince words. The country's in a mess. Voters in not-so-merry England face a choice between Twiddledumb, Tweedledave, Tweedledem - or a silly party.

A hyped Cleggmania horse has been flogged to death. Time to return to the real world with a bump. Economic misery. The shambles of a disastrous decade topped off with dire dole queues. No wonder the fag-enders are down in the polls and down in the dumps.

Out in the real world the public puts the economy top of the polls along with immigration. But 'economy' hides a multitude of sins. Voters are worried about rising prices, hanging on to a job or getting one in the first place.

The BBC, bless, has always done its best to beat an upbeat drum but comes unstuck when the 'recovery' vehicle turns into a breakdown truck.

Top stories - unemployment increase, inflation rate rises and the economy 'to stay in the doldrums' make a mockery of 'recovery'.

The Orange Party never bought into Borrowing Brown's weak excuse blaming it all on global this and that. The economy is decided by government policies or lack of them. Whether it is over banks, regulation or UK manufacturing.

Shifting the blame is a lamentable excuse from a lamentable leader, burying heads in the sand, spinning a way out of an economy mess of his own making.

Latest unemployment figures give a "mixed" picture of the "labour market" goes the spin. Er, unemployment is the number of poor souls out of work.

The number of people lucky to have a job has fallen. Long-term unemployment has risen. The claimant count may be down but unemployment has risen to a 16 year high. By 43,000 to 2.5 million during the three months to February, according to the ONS.

The official number of people 'claiming' unemployment benefit may well have fallen but that depends on who signs on and who signs off for whatever reason.

ONS figures showed youth unemployment rising, with nearly a million 16 to 24-year-olds out of work. Unemployment among the over-50s rose to 396,000.

One fifth of the population is "economically inactive" - out of work and not seeking work - rising to a record 8.16 million, equivalent to 21.5%. Students in the main, forced into useless education courses instead of real jobs.

The Orange Party has come over all blue. The worst thing to do would be to impose New Labour's NI jobs tax, today slammed by more business bosses. All this is a week when a leading forecaster warned the immediate prospects for the UK were "dismal". The economy will remain "stuck in the doldrums" this year with a tiny 2010 predicted growth of 1%.

The ugly side of printing funny money is beginning to show with the CPI inflation rate favoured by government rising sharply to 3.4%. And RPI inflation, which includes housing costs, also rising sharply to 4.4%.

The cock-eyed way of living in La-La land on borrowed money and borrowed time will be brought into sharp focus to round off the week.

Public finance figures tomorrow will show the extent of Borrowing Brown's binge. The bogeyman of crucial GDP growth figures out for Q1 on Friday is set to be spun as election 'good news' with rigged recovery.

The sham of spinning a deficit leaving a mountain of debt behind is a deceitful Darling debt dodge. Brown spin over debt and deficit, with rigged 'GDP' and fantasy growth is a deceitful way to run the economy.

Economic mumbo jumbo, fiddled figures and fudge. What is clear is that a whole raft of appalling figures on New Labour's watch blow out of the water any chance of a jobs recovery, with public sector cuts looming whoever holds the reigns of power.

The choice boils down to who voters trust to fix the economic mess or are happy to leave to fudge it.

Bottom graphic: Spectator

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Wall Street And City's Death By Greed

The collapse of Lehman Brothers is the latest ominous sign of the cancer spreading through the US and UK financial markets. The prognosis is terminal. More firms will follow but how long can taxpayers' cash be used to prop up firms who set out to make a fast buck out of the market. This is death by greed

Years of low interest rates to entice borrowers and easy credit, meant the bubble was going to burst one day.

The debt and risk had been bundled up and sold on, making big profits on the way, with the Chinese banks ultimately taking up the risk using their huge investment potential and sovereign wealth fund. 

But when the Chinese banks suddenly stop playing ball and went cold, the whole financial system crashes like a pack of cards.

But these are not 'bundles of risk' - these are people's home, their pensions, their dreams and their aspirations which have been put on the line. The collapse of the sub prime housing market is forcing thousands into misery. 

Pictures of City slickers, with their heads in their hands or clearing their desks carrying out cardboard boxes, cut no ice with people struggling to pay their bills and trying to cope with rising and mounting debt, facing the prospect of losing their homes. 

Wall Street and the City have been allowed to ride high on obscene bonuses, dividends and paper profits, by enticing people into debt by taking out loans well above their means and that lies at the root of the problem. 

Lehman Brothers wasn't the first to go under and won't be the last. 

The State of New York has announced a "multi-billion dollar financing plan" to shore up one of the world's largest insurers AIG, amid growing fears of collapse.

Some, like Merrill Lynch, bought out by the Bank of America, will survive in predatory moves, bought out while the stock is low but only when they are underwritten with government guarantees from public funds, as was the case when JP Morgan bailed out Bear Stearns. 

Others, like Northern Rock here and Fannie and Freddy in the US, where the political fall out is just too great, have been bailed out by the governments with the taxpayers picking up the tab. But without Chinese cash,  others will have to go to the wall. 

One solution proposed in the US and here by Chancellor Darling, is more regulation and more transparency but this has little chance of success. 

The investment banks have been allowed to flourish on the back of unfathomable accounting where it's well nigh impossible to follow a global paper trail. In this global economy, regulations brought in by individual nations can be by passed and ignored.

The UK has been happy to follow the US lead with this borrow more debt culture of global finance and a 'free market economy'. 

UK industry and manufacturing, once the powerhouse of any economy, have been allowed to stagnate and be decimated, to be replaced by an obsessive drive to make the City the financial centre of the world. 

The government was determined to make the City a success and saw that as the future but without any plan for when the bubble burst and the inevitable would happen. 

The government has shown little signs of wanting to look ahead. Preferring instead to sit it out and ride on the back of the good times - in the false hope that those days will somehow miraculously return. 

As the cancer spreads throughout the US and UK economies, the blame should rest on the shoulders of those who have allowed this flawed 'free market' economic model to flourish, without any checks, creating the culture of greed and fat profits. 

The casualties, as always, are the ordinary folk, worried about their homes and pensions. 

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