Blogs

Government decision making is based on outdated textbook economics; a reliance on economic modelling that can never truly represent us in all our complexity.

Recruitment doesn't always get the attention it deserves and can be seen as a distraction from the "more important" day-to-day running of a merchant or a manufacturer of building products.

Is it my imagination or, economic downturn or not, are people starting to feel a bit more positive about things? Yes, the high street retailers are still haemorrhaging sales, yes there are stories of whole tribes of brickies turning up on building sites looking for work and yes, energy prices have gone up yet again.

In a time where Wolseley have shed thousands of jobs and hundreds of branches, where even Travis Perkins and Grafton are cutting back on acquisition activity and the latter's sales are 14% down after 10 months, and where half the heavyside manufacturers have closed or mothballed plants, it's hardly surprising that something had to give.

One of the problems with this whole downturn thingy is that there seems to be so much information flying about, information and statistics and figures, all of whom contradict each other.

At the risk of repeating myself from last week, it looks as though the idea of the scrappage scheme has caught the imagination.

I've heard it said that you know you're a proper grown-up when, at the first flurry of snow your reaction is not 'Yay, snow, hooray' but 'oh damn, how am I going to get to work tomorrow' or 'why do other countries manage to cope with the snow properly'.

Right that's that done for another four or five years. My civic duty in exercising my democratic right to help decide the future of this country. I've done my bit for the election 2010.

So the Government has launched a review of housing market statistics because it is concerned that the myriad methods used for calculating house prices may be causing confusion.

Looking out of my kitchen window as I write this at a rainstorm of Noah-esque proportions, I think one might be forgiven for wondering if there is such a thing as a water shortage in this country.