Britannia Radio

This  posting contains a few snapshots of Britain today .  Pity the  
Times had to let its disclosures about the public sector pay rises  
get mixed up with the government’s smokescreen over one man’s  
outrageous pension.

The Tories won’t leave the Goodwin story alone either.  Osborne and  
his no:2 Hammond can’t leave it alone.  [Like Winnie the Pooh  
Osborn’s ‘a bear of very little brain’] It’s trivial and distracts  
from the real stories, like the stock exchange’s verdict on the multi- 
billion new bail-out of the banks,  - a sharp 4.5% fall - the only  
result of which will be to drag down the good  - er. . . the better -  
banks into the morass.
xxxxxxxxxxx cs
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ANANOVA            2.3.09
320,000 more job losses forecast

A further 320,000 jobs look set to be culled during the coming three  
months as companies respond to the recession, it has been warned.
Business advisers BDO Stoy Hayward said its employment index had  
dropped from 94.2 in January to 91.7 in February.

But the group said its output and optimism indexes had both risen  
modestly for the first time in 13 months, suggesting that businesses  
had accepted the realities of the recession and were adapting to cope  
with the downturn.

It added that the results also suggested that firms were taking swift  
and decisive action to tackle the challenges of the recession,  
including halting production or implementing new employment  
strategies to keep costs down.

The group's optimism index, which measures business confidence two  
quarters ahead, rose to 90.5 in February from 89.9 in January.
At the same time, the output index, which measures order book  
strength in the next quarter, edged up to 88.3 in February from a 29- 
year low of 88.1 in January.

Peter Hemington, partner at BDO Stoy Hayward, said: "Optimism remains  
low and businesses expect the economy to continue to contract, but  
companies are now adapting their business models for an uncertain  
future.
"It's still too early to say if business confidence has hit rock  
bottom and we've already seen a number of false dawns, but this  
month's modest increases are encouraging. We must watch carefully to  
see if this is the start of an upward trend."

Meanwhile, the British Retail Consortium called for urgent action to  
be taken to stop the closure of shops, following estimates that  
140,000 premises will be empty by the end of this year.

The group wants rents to be collected monthly and to fall in line  
with the state of the market, along with an immediate freeze on  
business rates and a restoration of empty property rate relief.
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SKY NEWS             2.3.09
Hospices Face Devastating Funding Gap

    Thomas Moore, health correspondent

Britain's hospices may have to cut back care for terminally ill  
patients because of the recession, according to exclusive research  
carried out for Sky News.

More than a third of hospices expect they will fail to raise enough  
money this financial year to fund their services.

And a similar number are expecting a funding gap in the next  
financial year, which starts in April.

Hospices provide essential medical and respite care for patients who  
are terminally ill, or have life-limiting medical conditions.
MORE ON:  http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Hospices-Hit-By- 
Economic-Downturn-Terminally-Ill-Face-Care-Cut-Backs/Article/ 
200903115231963? 
lpos=UK_News_Carousel_Region_1&lid=ARTICLE_15231963_Hospices_Hit_By_Econ 
omic_Downturn%3A_Terminally_Ill_Face_Care_Cut_Backs
=======================
THE TIMES                    2.3.09
A business-like public sector? We wish
Private companies are freezing pay as they struggle to survive the  
recession, unlike their counterparts in local government

    Ross Clark

I am so angry my council tax is going up to pay the soaring salaries  
of public sector workers that I am going to write a stinking letter  
to the town clerk. Oh, sorry, I meant the council's chief executive.  
I forgot that the public sector nowadays is no longer run by dull but  
worthy functionaries; it is led by dynamic, private sector-style  
leaders who think like entrepreneurs and use the language to match.  
They no longer just get the bins emptied and the drains unblocked,  
they set up strategic partnerships and carry out corporate  
restructuring.

They also command private sector salaries - up to £240,000 a year in  
the case of Newham borough council's chief executive - and have  
learnt to enjoy their corporate hospitality, too. But what does that  
matter when they are bringing private sector efficiency to the dusty  
world of public administration?

Well, it wouldn't matter if that were what they were doing. But just  
when it really matters our public sector leaders have decided that  
they no longer see it as appropriate to mock the private sector.  
Yesterday, the CBI confirmed what has been evident for some time:  
that private companies are freezing pay, even slashing salaries, as  
they struggle to survive the recession.

Is the public sector doing the same? Like heck it is. Nurses,  
teachers and police officers will all be getting pay rises of between  
2 and 3 per cent this year and next year, too. Life is even better  
for the top brass. Stung by the failure of its social services  
department to save Baby P from his abusers, Haringey Council decided  
to double the salary of its new head of children's services. Can  
anyone name a private sector post for which remuneration has doubled  
this year?

The public sector loves to talk business, but it hasn't the first  
clue about how to do it. That is why, when taking a majority stake in  
the Royal Bank of Scotland last October the Government allowed the  
former chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin to get away with his absurdly  
generous pension. Do you think that would have happened had the bank  
been taken over by a private company? Of course not. The terms of the  
takeover would have made sure Sir Fred spent the rest of his life on  
bread and cheese: just ask any of the thousands of bankers who have  
been marched off the premises over the past few months, with only a  
few seconds to shovel their kids' photographs off their desk into a  
black bin-liner.

Actually, I've got a better idea. Let Sir Fred keep some of his money  
on the condition that he works for it - in a newly created post of  
head of human resources for the Civil Service and local government.  
He isn't called Fred the Shred for nothing: he earned it thanks to  
his savage reputation for slashing costs. Then we really would have a  
business-like public sector.
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FINANCIAL TIMES                2.3.09 at 13:24
Stock markets tumble on new bank fears
By Paul J Davies

Global stock markets suffered a painful sell-off on Monday with many  
leading indices hitting multi-year lows as the latest financial  
industry demands for fresh capital and growing evidence of the depth  
of the economic downturn cast a pall.

HSBC in the UK said it was looking to raise £12.5bn in a deeply  
discounted share sale and would pull out of US consumer lending,  
while in the US itself it emerged that AIG, the struggling insurance  
giant, would take another $30bn in rescue financing from the government.

US stocks look likely to drop dramatically at the open, with futures  
markets showing a drop of more than 130 points for the Dow Jones  
Industrial Average to about 6,930. According to brokers at CMC  
markets, this will be the first time the index has opened below the  
7,000 level since 1997.

European stock markets have already taken a battering, with leading  
indices dropping to levels only marginally better than the nadir hit  
in March 2003 as troops prepared to roll into Iraq and the markets  
were still coming to terms with the dotcom crash.

Eurozone purchasing managers’ index (PMI) data did not help, coming  
in one basis point lower than expected at 33.5, illustrating a heavy  
contraction. Javier Perez de Azpillaga, European economist at Goldman  
Sachs, said the number “confirms deep and accelerating industrial  
contraction”.

The FTSE 100 in the UK was down as much as 4.5 per cent, or 165  
points to 3,665, its lowest since closing at 3602 on March 14 2003.  
By lunchtime in London the benchmark index, which has not closed  
below 3,700 since April 2003, was 3.9 per lower at 3,681.8.

The FTSE Eurofirst 300 meanwhile was down 29.2 points at 690.2, its  
lowest since its post-dotcom bottom of 682 points on 12 March 2003.

The main French German and Spanish indices were all down by more than  
3 per cent and the Swiss market was 4.2 per cent lower.

Asian stock markets suffered dramatic falls over night. The Nikkei  
225 in Japan and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong were down 3.81 per cent  
and 3.86 per cent respectively, but neither exceeded the lows hit in  
late October last year.

Banks led the stock market fallers with HSBC down as much as 22 per  
cent at 392?p. In the UK, Lloyds Group and Standard Chartered were  
the other leading financial fallers, both dropping about 10 per cent,  
while British Land and Land Securities, the property companies, were  
16.7 per cent and 9.8 per cent down respectively.

The market fallls kick-off what is expected to be a tough week with  
some important economic data to come, especially the US employment  
numbers on Friday, and Bank of England and European Central Bank rate  
meetings on Thursday.

Lena Komileva, head of G7 market economics at Tullett Prebon, said a  
“flight to liquidity” from stocks and corporate credit into  
government bonds was being driven by renewed banking sector jitters,  
which compounded concerns about a deepening global recession.

“A sharp revision to US fourth quarter GDP growth to -6.2% [on  
Friday] ... further undermined any confidence stemming from recent  
better-than-expected economic releases, increasing trepidation ahead  
of Friday’s all-important non-farm payrolls report,” she said.

Economists have warned that a record fall in US employment is a clear  
danger for February’s non-farm payrolls data on Friday. The consensus  
forecast is for a fall of 615,000 compared with the largest monthly  
drop of 629,000 in July 1956.

Markets fully predict a 50 basis points cut from each of the UK and  
eurozone central banks, but there is a danger that this will be  
viewed as little better than treading water, especially after Mervyn  
King, head of the Bank of England, said last week that it could take  
a couple of months before more unconventional measures are approved.   
[Pure “gesture politics” here.  Savers would be even worse off  and  
it would have no infgluence at all.  As a weapon it is ‘busted’.  -cs]

John Wraith, head of sterling rates at RBC, said that in spite of  
this comment he expected approval for quantiative easing to come in  
the very near future, because the next rate cut would leave the Bank  
powerless to ease monetary policy further.
“There are likely to be increasing nerves in the [government bond]  
market in the absence of such an announcement, as even after the  
market softness of Thursday and late slide on Friday, there remains a  
lot of “QE premium” priced in at current levels,” he said.