Whilst at the supermarket a few days' ago, I bought a bottle of Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce. The cost was £2.09. Around three months ago it was 30p cheaper. We all know the cost of eggs, butter, bread and milk has increased dramatically over the last year. According to a report I read today, the cost of food has risen by over 10%. Although inflation went down by 0.7% in the last month, it was largely due to the reduction in the price of oil, meaning cheaper petrol and diesel.Today, I was waiting for my car to be repaired at the local Vauxhall Dealer's workshop. I know most of the sales staff, the service manager, the workshop foreman and the mechanics, so I can get an accurate picture of what is happening in the motor trade. Unsurprisingly, they are not selling cars and the...

Edmund King: Britain's auto industry is in dire need of help. But a 1970s-style bail-out is not the...

CREDIT Crunch watch: Anorak’s look at credit crunch in the news “Many are expected to opt for small, cheap firs as they try to beat the credit crunch” – Daily Express “Vicky Tuck, president of the Girls’ Schools Association, said she found the economic downturn ‘bracing’ and hoped it would lead to the end of the unfulfilling materialistic ‘me, me, me society” - Daily Mail Tuck is the heads of Cheltenham Ladies’ College. Fees on...

Train company removes London to Norwich restaurant car as part of a wider cull of...

The Tory base and its newspaper supporters are ecstatic. David Cameron has abandoned his commitment to match Labour's spending pledges, so that he can get out of the self-imposed strictures that would prevent him supporting any tax cuts in Monday's Pre-Budget Report. Meanwhile, a new poll shows that the Tory lead is down to a mere three points, placing it well within margins of error, and confirming the trend of most recent polling.The consensus among Tory commentators seems to be that Cameron has executed a terribly clever move which will pay dividends in the coming months as voters tire of the Labour government. Maybe. But isn't it just as likely that swing voters, having been persuaded that the Tories had shown real signs of change, might conclude that the earlier Cameron strategy was...

The dispute between the easyJet board and the airline's largest shareholder escalated this morning after Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou refused to approve annual accounts which showed a 46% fall in pre-tax profits.Haji-Ioannou, who has fallen out with board members over the budget carrier's strategy, said he was "unable" to back today's figures due to a number of objections related to easyJet's acquisition of GB Airways. The easyJet founder also ruled out becoming chairman of the airline but has proposed two lieutenants from his easyGroup business as non-executive directors. In a letter to the board published at the end of easyJet's annual results, Haji-Ioannou again criticised the airline's ambitious expansion plans."I would like to place on record that I believe that with careful cash...

The Swiss bank UBS set out a tough new pay system yesterday for its top executives that could see senior bankers "fined" or forced to repay part of their bonuses if they under-perform in years of hefty losses.Proclaiming the end of the era of excessive bonuses in the global financial sector, Peter Kurer, the bank's chairman, who is paid a fixed annual salary of 2m Swiss francs (£1.1m), said the new system would eradicate the culture of paying out multimillion bonuses and stock options on short-term results and rewarding excessive risk-taking.The proposed cultural shift would see rewards for "those who deliver good results over several years without assuming unnecessarily high risk," he added.His comments came as Goldman Sachs, the US bank renowned for its huge Christmas payouts,...

Perhaps I am lucky or perhaps it says something about my personality, but I do not hate anyone. I dislike some people and I dislike others intensely, however, when the chips are down, I would always offer a helping hand. Gordon Brown is the exception.I am coming very close to hating the man. Recently he has found a smile on his face. Recently he has a spring in his step. The only reason I do not hate him is because you cannot hate someone who has a mental illness, and I believe he has a mental illness. He is deluded. He cannot say sorry and he is does believe he has anything to say sorry for. He really believes the problems the UK faces are global problems and nothing to do with his ten years as Chancellor of the Exchequer. He really believes borrowing more to fund what he calls tax cuts,...

Rapid, coordinated and concerted action is needed to combat the global economic downturn Gordon Brown said today as he paved the way for an expected announcement on tax cuts.In a Commons statement on the weekend's first ever meeting of the G20 group of world leaders in Washington, the prime minister said there was an "emerging consensus" on the need for a broad and concerted international macroeconomic policy response to the financial crisis."The more coordinated the action the greater the benefit to each country will be," he said. "But I believe the emerging consensus across the world – from the IMF itself and from government of left and right, and in developed and developing countries – is that we should take rapid coordinated and concerted action through the use of budgetary...

London job losses expected as banking giant cuts 15% of its global...

Hang on a minute. Could somebody please have a word with whoever's in charge? They've got the story wrong again. It's the Labour party that is supposed to be fighting like furious ferrets in a bag and the Tories who hang together. Suddenly, as the extraordinary politics of the economic crash unfold, it seems the other way around. Tory front-benchers are bitching. Tory fundraisers are in revolt. And Tory activists are spitting with hostility at one of their own.I don't turn on the telly or open the papers to watch Labour people being grownup and sensible about each other. I don't expect the Conservatives to sound panicky and lost, particularly when the country is hurting so badly. Even the polls show the gap between Labour and the Conservatives is closing. You would almost have thought the...

The value of the pound against the dollar and the euro will be under intense scrutiny today after a weekend when political fault lines widened over the best way to keep Britain from sliding into deep recession.George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, yesterday renewed his claim that Britain's ballooning public sector debt is triggering an unprecedented collapse in the value of sterling, insisting it is his job to tell the truth.With the markets likely to mark sterling down further this week in the face of further poor economic data, Osborne is preparing to defend himself against Labour claims that his remarks have speeded up sterling's decline. David Cameron, the Conservative party leader, is expected to come to his defence in the Commons today, when he replies to a statement from Gordon...

George Osbourne today dismissed criticism that he lacked judgment in predicting a run on the pound, insisting it was his job to tell "the truth about the British economy".The shadow Chancellor was forced to defend himself after Labour aides and small business organisations accused him of talking down sterling despite a convention that politicians do not predict currency collapses. Kenneth Clarke, the man some MPs now want to replace Osborne, had to ride to his rescue, insisting his words were "perfectly sensible".In an interview in yesterday's Times, Osborne warned that excessive government borrowing to shore up the economy meant there was a risk of "a proper sterling collapse, a run on the pound".Labour officials said it was "unbelievable" that Osborne would discuss the weakness of...

George Osbourne was at the centre of a political storm last night after being accused of lacking judgment in predicting a 'run on the pound' amid Britain's gravest financial crisis since the Thirties.The shadow Chancellor was forced to defend himself after Labour aides and small business organisations accused him of talking down sterling despite a convention that politicians do not predict currency collapses. Kenneth Clarke, the man some MPs now want to replace Osborne, had to ride to his rescue, insisting his words were 'perfectly sensible'.As Gordon Brown used his appearance at an international economic summit in Washington to showcase what is expected to be a multi-billion-pound package of tax cuts for low and middle earners, coupled with public spending to kick-start the economy, a...

Daily Express, 14th November 2008While I'm sure it's unintended, yesterday's Daily Express front page just about sums it up: ten thousand jobs lost in one day; free soup for every reader. Form an orderly queue by the kitchen now.They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob, When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job. They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead, Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for...

Gordon Brown arrived in Washington last night for a crisis meeting of the G20 after pledging that lower interest rates, tax breaks for the low paid and measures to make the economy greener would be at the centre of Britain's response to the global recession.The prime minister hinted that the pre-budget report this month would make tax credits for the working poor more generous and provide cash for home insulation. Brown also said the cost of borrowing would come down, and delivered a veiled rebuke to the Bank of England for keeping interest rates too high for too long.Today's talks between the leaders of 20 major developed and developing nations are expected to endorse measures to lift the global economy out of the downturn, although some European countries are lukewarm about big...

The bank has not yet said where in the world the axe will fall but news of the plans has alarmed politicians and union leaders in...

The British economy suffered another black day yesterday as BT announced it was shedding 10,000 jobs - bringing the total number of job losses around the country this week to nearly 20,000.BT, the UK's largest telecoms firm, is axing 10,000 workers, or 6% of its global workforce, including several thousand in the UK, as it battens down the hatches for a recession. News of the losses, which accompanied the announcement of an 11% drop in second quarter profits, came amid more bad news for Britain's remaining manufacturing industry. JCB, the digger company, said it was cutting production at its UK plants by a third, with the loss of almost 400 jobs. Meanwhile, the truck-maker Leyland announced 250 job losses and an extended shutdown at its factory over Christmas because of a "severe decline"...

Gordon Brown tonight called on the world's most powerful industrial nations to agree a programme of immediate and coordinated tax cuts to prevent the global economy sliding deeper into recession.Arriving in New York for this weekend's unprecedented gathering of the leaders of the world's leading 20 economies, the prime minister said the need for a "fiscal stimulus" both for the UK economy and the world had increased after an autumn in which accelerating job losses had intensified fears of a deep and lasting slump.Brown proposed a four-point plan which he hopes will win support at tomorrow's summit and help tackle the most severe financial crisis for 90 years."By acting now we can stimulate growth in all our economies," he said. "There is a need for urgency. The cost of inaction will be...

The chances of a recession are increasing by the day so it comes as no surprise that a lot of businesses are looking for new solutions such as serviced office space to help cut costs right down and bring in flexibility to downsize as and when the needs of the business demand. Small businesses will suffer...

...oh and Yousuf. There is a Channel 4 fact check brilliamtly unearthed my Lib Dem blogger of the year Alix Mortimer that should be essential reading for Gordon Brown, Havering Yousuf and all other Socialist Labour politicos before they start/carry on [delete as applicable] of misrepresenting the truth, because they know they're unto a...

After Beijing’s Olympics, which were both funded from and designed to promote the nation’s economic surge, London’s Olympics look set to reflect a country deep in recession, as well as those in Vancouver, Sochi, and anywhere else for the next decade. Tessa Jowell, Olympic Minister aka Minister For Disappointment, said on Tuesday that Britain wouldn’t have bid for the Games had we known a recession would hit. After that vote of confidence she went on to say the Games were a “counter-cyclical investment” that would fight against the recession by providing jobs all over the country. Just funded from the public purse rather than the private, presumably; as investors can’t see when and from where they’ll get their money back, the government is...

Stockmarkets in Europe and Asia were hit today by worries over the US and Chinese economies, as Germany became the second eurozone country to sink into...

The Baltic Dry Index is not something to do with temperance movements in Lithuania – it is the measure of the cost of moving cargo around the world by sea. And it has collapsed by over 90% since May 2008. This is a measure of the downturn in world trade in raw materials, and an indication of the seriousness of the squeeze on the ‘Real Economy’ in the goods that can be produced from these raw materials.Put simply, the cost of shipping has dropped through the floor. Sending a tonne of iron ore from Brazil to China in early June would have set you back more than $100 (£62) per tonne, or around $15m per voyage. But freight rates have now dropped to only slightly over $10 per tonne, or just $1.5m for the 70-90 day journey.As if that wasn't dramatic enough, the drop in daily charter...

Like urban foxes, they dislike the glare of lights and avoid the human gaze. But the stealthiest, wealthiest billionaires in America's hedge fund industry will reluctantly show their faces today to deny that they have wrecked the global economy.At a hearing of Congress's house oversight committee called by the pugnacious Democrat Henry Waxman, five top hedgies with a combined wealth of $29bn (£19bn) will be called to account on the activities of their secretive, high-risk, barely regulated industry.John Paulson, George Soros, Jim Simons, Ken Griffin and Philip Falcone are the cream of a crop of financiers who, to their enemies, are the robber barons of the modern economic order. The world's richest man, Warren Buffett, has dubbed their fees "grotesque". Italy's finance minister has...

The finances of the Yellowstone Club couldn't sustain its founders ambitions to expand...

The TUC is appealing to the government today to raise jobless benefits after news yesterday of at least 5,000 job cuts by leading British companies.Ahead of official data released today that is likely to show another big rise in unemployment, Virgin Media said it would slash 2,200 jobs, Yell said it would cut another 1,300 jobs, Psion said 220 jobs would go, and Vodafone announced it would cut costs by £1bn, which is expected to involve thousands of job cuts among its 47,000-strong European workforce.Taylor Wimpey became the latest construction firm to announce job losses, admitting it had shed 1,000 employees over the past two months alone, on top of 900 that went earlier in the year. And GlaxoSmithKline said it would close its pharmaceuticals plant in Dartford by 2013, which will...