It's Grim Up North And In Brown's Bunker

It will be grim up North for years to come as cities limp out of recession. And the country faces a "decade of pain" after years of Borrowing Brown's spending binge. A phoney election war is being waged while the country goes down the pan.

The gulf between rich and poor cities is set to widen. The struggling North may even face a second crippling blow to recovery, warns think tank Centre for Cities, which points to the widening economic gap between the haves and the have nots.

Nowhere is this highlighted more than in a tale of two cities, with Bath and Hull (opposite) shown up starkly by the Independent as among the best and worst.

Hull - home to heroin, home secretary Johnson, fish and chips and Prescott. Bath - with cool spas, good transport links, a strong private business base and a well-fed, well-educated, middle-class elite.

It's hell in Hull and grim in Grimsby. Cities and towns, including Barnsley, Doncaster and Stoke have seen a drastic jump in unemployment. It will take years before jobs return to pre-depression levels.

The gap between unemployment in Labour's industrial hearlands and the wealthier South has already more than doubled in a year. Soaring from 4.8 to 8.4 per cent in Hull - but only from 1.4 to 2.1 per cent in Cambridge.

The outlook is grim for youngsters on the wrong side of the divide. Figures out this week are set to show unemployment topping 2.5million - with nearly a million 16 to 24-year-olds on the dole. The grim survey is more grim evidence of the grim economic devastation caused by Borrowing Brown's grim recession. Grim cities hit hardest were already suffering before struck down by savage recession.

Private sector jobs have been slashed after the 'boom' years' growth propped up by ballooning debt, relying now on the sham of public sector non-jobs. Cities are paying a high price for a decade of New Labour's failure and incompetence with young people bearing the brunt.

Recovery will be long and hard. Without a surgical strategy, there is no end in sight for this painful tale of two types of city.

Centre for Cities chief executive, Dermot Finch, said: "Figures this month will likely show the recession is technically over - but it won't feel like that in many places for a long time."

Back in the 'Barmy' Bunker, the country faces a "decade of pain" as the cost of Borrowing Brown's spending spree stifles economic recovery, warns leading economic forecaster Ernst & Young ITEM Club. Growth this year and next would be far lower than government forecasts. And they claimed massive debts mean the country faces a decade of "painful readjustment" as taxes rise and public spending is slashed.

Chief economic adviser, Peter Spencer, said: "We are no longer in a position to borrow - the massive debts that we racked up in the last decade now need to be repaid."

Official figures due later this month may well confirm the country pulled out of recession in the final months of 2009 but ITEM put this down to emergency measures such as the 'cash-for-bangers' scrappage scheme which have propped up spending.

No doubt the government will make a song and dance with the boast that the country is coming out of recession depression. But that's nowhere near recovery with little growth in what will be a "challenging year" ahead, notes Bloomberg.

"Once the effects of these temporary stimuli have worn off, it is difficult to see where the growth is going to come from in the short-term," said Spencer.

The Orange Party has long believed the key to the country's recovery and salvation is manufacturing. The ITEM report said the economy faces stagnation unless the economy changes from borrow-and-spend to being more export driven.

But with manufacturing decimated, saving the economy with an export-led boost is a forlorn, false hope.

What is clear is that the country is no longer in a position to borrow. ITEM added that it "remained concerned" over the UK's dire public finances, with net borrowing set to soar to a record £178 billion this year.

Those massive debts racked up in the last decade of deceit now need to be repaid. The Bank of England will have to stop printing money sometime to halt rampant inflation.

Manufacturing is on its last legs. The government cannot borrow and spend to fuel an economic revival. The public just doesn't trust New Labour's half-baked election 'pledges'. When they got there, the treasury coffers were bare.

Election weary voters and struggling businesses need a general election now. Only then can a fresh start be made on the tough decisions needed to set the country on the rocky road to recovery. Fat chance.

Unemployment graphic: Sun

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Young Jobless Left With Legacy Of Despair

A legacy of despair is being left behind by a fag-end government with a lost generation of youngsters sinking in a sea of despondency and destined for a life on the dole. After a decade of dire jobs drivel, shocking figures reveal the true extent of a government paying lip-service to any pretence of working 'Labour' credentials.

A Policy Exchange think tank report based on official DWP figures over the last ten years makes grim reading. The true extent of the jobs figures sham highlights a shocking 6 million poor souls on out-of-work benefits.

And that comes as embarrassing official figures reveal record numbers of Neets - the 18-24-year-olds not in school, college or work so beloved of jobs figures manipulators.

According to quarterly figures, there are now more than 100,000 more 18-24-year-olds Neets - not in education, employment or training - than there were a year ago. That's now a disgraceful 835,000.

Given half a chance very few people would choose to live on state handouts. But when you are being screwed for a job left right and centre there's little choice.

Pride gives way to despair as hope is abandoned for all those who try to enter a dwindling jobs market. And with forced unemployment comes crime and punishment from a society of the fortunate few.

Hiding his head in the sand for the last ten years, chancellor Darling spins the government pre-election line that the government will do "all it can" to avoid the "lost generation" of young people.

But manufacturing has been deliberately decimated, putting all the eggs in a financial services and media/creative basket now on its last legs. Cheap slave labour has been imported to do the dirty jobs to give the country a false sense of economic security. Billions of pounds have been squandered on useless non-job creation schemes.

The Orange Party's big concern is that away from all the worthy, worthless rhetoric, governments have a nasty habit of keeping a pool of workers on sedation on the dole.

Bosses too can keep a lid on a workforce scared stiff of losing their jobs, forcing pay cuts and forcing down working conditions, in return for fat profits and bonuses.

The usual lame excuse is trotted out blaming the rapid rise on the recession depression and a lack of jobs for school and college leavers. Ministers worth their salt should have seen it coming and made plans instead of sitting idly by and waiting for the jobless to be thrown on the scrapheap?

Hiding behind the spin of a global recession cuts no ice. The government is still trying to dig itself out of an economic hole of its own making.

What isn't needed is Sugar-coated apprenticeship gimmicks from a celebrity-obsessed government nor dumbed-down Mickey Mouse qualifications to push disillusioned youngsters into useless college courses to put off the dreaded day of a life on the dole.

Tories are driving home the point accusing ministers of making "empty promises" and driving home a message which chimes with the public.

Petty party politics apart, what is certain is that the country cannot and must not lose a whole generation of young people to unemployment and underachievement nor breed a culture where jobs are the exception and hand-outs are the rule.

Most Neet youngsters are likely to have low skills and a lack of real experience of real jobs in the real world.

Meaningful training, apprenticeships and work is the answer, not the current mishmash of half-baked uselessness 'courses' and non-jobs which just act as a stopgap before the dole queue beckons.

Time will tell whether the Tories will turn it around and whether the new People's 'Progressive' Party lives up to its name or lives down to the hype.

What is clear is that after more than a decade of deceit, whoever put the 'new' into New Labour should hang their heads in shame.

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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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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. 

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Brown's Jobs Sham Raises False Hopes

Government ministers, who've never had a proper job, have gone into jobs overload, raising false hopes with the sham of jobs to dig themselves out of a hole, as the economy crumbles round their ears. 

With unemployment rife, the government knows the election will be fought on the battle ground of the economy. But time and again these much vaunted 'jobs' are nothing of the sort - just a sham to capture headlines, raising false hopes for people desperately struggling to make ends meet and anxious about the bleak future.

The economic recession depression should be a golden opportunity for the government to dust itself down, pick itself up and start all over again. But after a decade of spin and deceit, the only solution Brown can come up with is still more of the same.

The Orange Party is starting to lose track as the government goes into jobs announcements overload, none of which stand up to close scrutiny and none of them cut any ice with voters who are fed up with being Brown beaten by the spin.

A quick look trawl through Brown's BBC and Downing Street websites reveal the true extent of this deliberate electioneering campaign to hit on jobs, jobs, jobs as the government founders and flannels its way along.

Today we learn ministers are considering plans to guarantee reportedly up to £20 billion of loans to small businesses by insuring banks against firms defaulting on their loan payments. The devil is in the detail due to be announced tomorrow but what is clear is that kind of cash is a drop in the ocean and seems like more cash is just being thrown at the banks.

Yesterday it was the three amigos, Mandelson, Purnell and Brown promising to lift the country out of recession with the 'creation' of 500,000 new jobs with grants of £2,500 each to employers. But the figures didn't stack up and rapidly fell apart when Purnell revealed the scheme was going to cost a mere £500 million - or just £1,000 per head and only kick in after six months unemployment.

Brown promised to 'create' 100,000 new jobs, when that was actually only 'up to' 100,000 jobs and he meant protecting existing jobs. Then we had the announcement of 35,000 apprenticeships. But no one seemed to know if these were 'new' apprenticeships. 

He did cheer everyone up in Liverpool,  unveiling £35 million extra to help business start-ups. But then it transpires this wasn't new money after all. 

And so it goes on. There's clearly a well-planned election strategy at work here. Travelling round, looking busy doing something, creating great false expectations with commitments which cannot be delivered. It may look good on Brown's websites - but that's all. 

Time and again companies state the bleedin' obvious. Bogus job creation schemes are a waste of space if banks won't lend them money, preferring instead to squirrel away all that taxpayer's cash. 

But the government is good at creating non-jobs particularly in the public sector. None of these jobs have any connection with the real economy. What's the big deal about New Deal apart from fiddling the dole figures with useless job creation schemes and disillusioned workers? 

The recession should be a time for opportunity, to wipe the slate clean and start all over again. Cut out the waste in Whitehall and local government. Put an end to the squandered billions and hair-brained fancy white elephant schemes. 

Create a culture and climate away from debt which allows firms to flourish and create genuine jobs. Real jobs for real people is a fine mantra. It just needs a government that will put its mouth where our money is. 

Picture: Tractor Stats

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Brown Spins Over Iraq To Duck The Flak

When the going gets tough, the tough get going - in Brown's case to Iraq for more photo-ops for the Downing Street Christmas album, a chance to grab a few headlines and escape some hard questions in the final commons punch-up before the hols.

In a parting shot and final insult to parliament, the saviour of the world chose to announce troop withdrawals on another whistle-stop tour of Baghdad and Basra. 

The announcement has been widely expected and predicted in the run up to the general election. For months the Orange Party has been pointing out that the UN mandate for foreign occupation ends in a few weeks time and the actual announcement left for political advantage. 

But it is a major announcement of the final pull-out nonetheless and that should have been made to parliament. 

So what else is happening today that made that quick trip to Iraq so important? 

Oh yes, harsh questions in the commons at PMQs. Unemployment close to 2 million and rising - the nightmare for this government hanging over its head, now at their highest since New Labour took over in 1997.

Many face a bleak Christmas as the recession (or BBC downturn) starts to bite. The TUC, is warning today that half a million people are likely to spend their second Christmas in a row on the dole because of a rise in long-term unemployment.

The sharp rise is much more than expected and that's using the government's own preferred method of fiddling the figures.

Unemployment is set to rise to over 3 million next year and into 2010 and there's no light at the end of the tunnel, according to a member of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee, reported today by the Guardian.

So just what is the government doing about it? Planning to sell-off Royal Mail and put thousands more jobs at risk. 

Mandleson's plans for a sell-off dressed up as 'part-privatisation' will not go away especially among backbench Labour MPs, furious at the betrayal of a central plank of Labour Party policy and manifesto commitment. 

No matter how Mandy the Mailman tried to spin it, this is a backdoor sell-off with disastrous consequences for jobs. 

At the moment the outrage is coming from backbench Labour MPs. Soon it will filter up to some pay-roll MPs in lowly government positions and then to the cabinet, where former postie, Alan Johnson, won't get away with just a bemused smile. 

Questions would be asked in the House - if only Brown could be bothered to turn up. 

11am UPDATE: Labour MP Jim McGovern has resigned from the government in protest at Mandelson's Royal Mail part-privatisation plans. McGovern, PPS to business minister Pat McFadden, whose department would overseeing the changes said: "In his statement Pat McFadden said he welcomed an expression of interest from the Dutch postal company TNT, for me it simply beggars belief that we would employ the services of a company from abroad to tell the Royal Mail in this country where they are going wrong."

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Quick Reforms Rip Heart Out Of Welfare

Shameful moves to force the weak and vulnerable into work rips the heart out of the welfare state. Now these cruel and heartless plans have been rounded on by a senior government adviser who warns the new measures may push people into poverty. 

Any pretence ministers had to care for the traditions of a welfare state or the less fortunate in society have been ripped to shreds with government adviser, Sir Richard Tilt, warning plans to get the jobless back to work, or cut their benefits, should be delayed.

The government move should be seen for what it is. These plans have nothing to do with creating a fairer welfare benefit system and everything to do with an obsession with unemployment targets and spending cutbacks on the needy. A shameful way of bringing down the unemployment figures set to hit 3m by the end of next year. 

And they come at a time when the country is facing a grave economic crisis. The move will do nothing to help the millions caught up in the poverty trap of spiralling debt and despair. 

Calls to rethink or delay plans to force lone parents, disabled people and the long-term jobless to seek work should be welcomed as unemployment spirals out of control.

Sir Richard rightly points out that benefit rates are relatively low and if you reduce benefit for a few weeks by 40%, you are pushing people much closer to poverty. 

But work and pensions secretary, James Purnell's, callous Blairite reply claims the plans would offer support to the jobless, not penalise them and it was more vital than ever to help the jobless seek employment.

Once again, it's innocent children who will suffer as they are forced to turn into latchkey kids. The struggling parent is forced onto the streets, picking up a menial and degrading job while scratching around for childcare. 

Lone parents often stay at home often for good reason. Pushing the parent into work is not the way to go about it. 

No-one would deny welfare reforms are much needed but now is neither the time nor the way to bring in these draconian measures. Reforms need to be brought in with a caring heart and compassion, not bulldozed through to save on benefits payments and massage unemployment figures. 

Government claims that there are over half a million jobs out there for the taking are a lie. 

Most would require the huge upheaval of a long move to another part of the country. Most are very poorly paid menial jobs, tantamount to slave labour, in appalling conditions, which nobody wants.

From March 2009, parents of 14 and 15-year-olds will no longer be able to claim income support and from July 2009, the change will extend to parents of 12 and 13-year-olds. Then, by October 2010, lone parents with children aged seven and over will be required to look for work in order to get benefits.

These "welfare to work" reforms will end up as another shambles with people left frantic with worry over how they're going to make ends meet. 

The Orange Party despised the Thatcher years when everyone was in for themselves, leaving the poor, weak and vulnerable out in the cold and at the mercy of predators. 

Now New Labour and its Blairite policies have been exposed, once again, as a smug bunch of neo -Thatcherites with no heart and no soul. Bevan will be turning in his grave.

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