More on the collapse of Britain here. The last item from The Independent is a telling account of the poisonous legacy of smear, spin, lies and innuendo that Brown left behind in the press deparment of the Treasury, from which professionals have been largely replaced by Labour ‘spinners’.
Christina Speight
TELEGRAPH
30.6.09
1. Neets figures 'to top one million for first time'
One million young people will be left without a job or college place this summer after falling victim to the recession, according to a report.
By Graeme Paton, Education Editor
The number of 16 to 24-year-olds branded as "Neet" - not in education, employment or training - is set to reach its highest point since records began, said the Local Government Association.
Researchers said many could be "stuck in a rut" for years after being left behind by the economic recovery.
Teenagers and young adults from white backgrounds are around 20 per cent more likely to be out of work or training than those from black and Asian families, it was disclosed, while women are worse hit than men.
The LGA suggested family breakdown and a history of unemployment among parents was to blame.
It called for earlier intervention to target children aged under 11 at risk of becoming "Neets" in later life.
Councils should also be given more power to run their own training courses - funded by local reductions in job-seeker allowance payments made to young people.
The comments come as Gordon Brown announced plans on Monday to cut benefits for young unemployed who refuse a job or training offer.
It also follows fears that highly-skilled teenagers will be among those struggling to find work this summer.
Research by The Daily Telegraph last week suggested an extra 60,000 school-leavers would fail to get into university amid an unprecedented rise in demand for degree courses.
Margaret Eaton, chairman of the LGA, said: "It is deeply worrying that the nation seems set on a course to have a million young people not in any form of education or work. That's a million young people stuck in a rut, not able to get on and do something productive with their lives and not contributing to the economy.
"Too many promising young people, with their whole lives ahead of them are at risk of falling through the cracks."
She added: "A mish mash of government departments, national agencies, voluntary organisations and local authorities all working to different targets and agendas muddy the water and prevent a coherent approach to dealing with the issue."
\New figures for the first quarter of 2009 show 935,000 people aged 16 to 24 are classed as "Neet". This is up from 810,000 for the same period least year and the highest number since figures for the age range were first recorded in 2005.
The latest report - co-produced by the Centre for Social Justice - said those over 19 were particularly vulnerable because they were "not at the centre" of Government targets, which are focused on under-18s.
"It is a bureaucratic artifice to cease to serve people in an identical situation simply because they have reached their 19th birthday," said the report. "We consider that, without help, young people who are unemployed and without skills at the start of the recession face a serious risk of being left behind by the economic recovery."
Yvette Cooper, the Work and Pensions Secretary, [The mistress of wordy, meaningless statements designed to confuse with repeated targets -cs] said: "We're determined to do everything we can to help people who are being hit by the world recession. Never again must we lose a generation to worklessness. That is why we are working to increase training places and intensive support to help young people into work. We are working with employers, councils and voluntary groups across the country to create over 100,000 youth jobs, increase apprenticeships, and provide internships for graduates.
"All school leavers will now be able to take up a college or apprenticeship place and from next year anyone under 25 who has been unemployed for a year will be required to take up a guaranteed job or training place. We believe it's right to help people through the difficult times so that local communities and our national economy can come through this sooner and stronger."
2, UK economy shrinks most since 1958
The UK economy shrank 2.4pc in the first quarter, its largest contraction since 1958, according to the latest official data.
By Telegraph Staff
The decline in gross domestic product (GDP) was greater than an earlier estimate from the Office for National Statistics of 1.9pc as the recession deepened, hitting industries from manufacturing to services.
The drop on the quarter was the biggest since the year that Michael Jackson [WHO? -cs] was born and Harold Macmillan was prime minister.
Construction dropped 6.9pc on the quarter, revised down from a drop of 2.4pc published in May. Services declined 1.6pc, revised from a 1.2pc drop.
Households remain under pressure. They saved less than in the previous quarter, with the household savings ratio dropping to 3pc, down from 4pc in the last quarter of 2008.
Mervyn King, the Bank of England Governor, said last week that Britain's recovery from recession may turn out to be ``a long, hard slog''.
While a number of recent surveys have pointed to an easing in the recession, the expectation is that unemployment will continue to rise and lending remains slow.
The FT’s headline on this ----
UK economy shrinks most in 50 years
Recession deeper than expected
INDEPENDENT
30.6.09
Secrets of the war against the Bank
The Treasury is deploying every 21st-century weapon of spin in its public relations battle with the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, reports economics editor Sean O'Grady
In his first act as Speaker, John Bercow warned the Government to stop leaking: "When ministers have key policy statements to make, the House must be the first to hear them, and they should not be released beforehand" intoned the diminutive champion of Parliament before Prime Minister's Questions. His authority was challenged within hours.
Tellingly, it was that most arrogant of Government departments, the Treasury, that defied him, as it pursued its vendetta against the Bank of England. Mr Bercow issued his injunction on Wednesday: The Treasury handed the Financial Times the details of its forthcoming White Paper on banking regulation in time for Friday's edition. The story? The Bank will have to share powers with the Financial Services Authority. Not Watergate, admittedly, but a useful scoop, and a slap in the face for the Bank. File under "arcane but important for the future of the City and thousands of jobs".
Mr Speaker Bercow ought to be annoyed, but the more annoyed he gets, the smugger the Treasury's spin doctors will be with their own insolence. They've humiliated the Governor of the Bank of England and the Speaker of the House of Commons in one deft move. Clever, eh?
Clever, yes, but not big, and illustrative of the different methods of media management employed by the Treasury and the Bank. Their ways could not be more different, nor their values and ethos, though both are supposed to be sober agencies of state charged with safeguarding the economy. But they are not alike, and seem more like rivals, maybe because they are both charged with that same duty.
The Treasury is mesmerised by media manipulation and how to bend the web to its advantage. The Bank is not. And they are at war. The military analogy that springs to mind is that of the battlefields of Poland in 1939: the gallant, old-fashioned, but profoundly brave Polish cavalry officers riding their horses towards the might of the German's modern panzer divisions. The Treasury has the armour; the Bank is on horseback. The winner of this battle is not so predictable, though.
The Treasury's panzers are the modern ways of manipulation – anonymous smearing, leaks and spin. But advanced weaponry as they may have at their disposal, they don't seem always to deploy it to lethal effect. Or, leastways, lethal effect on their enemies rather than themselves. To take one obvious example, the absurd "chancellor-as-thoughtful-bloke" interview that Alistair Darling offered the Guardian's Decca Aitkenhead at his Highlands hideaway last year, replete with comedy image of him crawling around his little rowing boat, specs askew. That provided an irresistible Private Eye cover, with the headline "Darling in Creek Tragedy" and the bubble "where's my paddle?" Nice work, guy
The team did better when it came to saving Darling's job in the reshuffle. It was ironic that their efforts were in response to a threat from Schools Secretary Ed Balls, who, as Gordon Brown's special adviser when Brown was Chancellor, spent a decade "modernising" the Treasury's media ops, ie brutalising them. A number of old-style press officers were eased out in New Labour's early days. As a result, the Treasury was well able to get down and dirty, this time at Balls' expense. Don't forget, either, that this is the department of state that once gave Charlie "Bollocks" Whelan a berth, and was also the nursery of one Damian McBride, the man who gave us an "email campaign of hate" against the Tories, as the tabs called it. The boozy, aggressive profanity usually associated with the Treasury is unfair on some of the team, who are far from laddish. But the contrast with the more academic, cerebral atmosphere of the Bank is still striking.
[- shortened here]
There are technical briefings on the Bank's reports and important policy initiatives, but nothing personal or political. If Mervyn King wants to mix it with the Chancellor, it seems, he doesn't get Jenny to ring up some crony in the press to pour poison in their ear. No: Mr King just says what he thinks, bluntly, at as high a profile event as he can find: the Mansion House dinner is ideal; an appearance at the Treasury Select Committee is fine. It has done him little harm, so far. He has made himself look like a victim of Treasury spite, being excluded from consultations on a White Paper he ought to have been closely engaged with. He has made himself the financial conscience of the nation by criticising the scale of Government borrowing, though that is properly speaking a political matter. By not spinning he has won the spin battle – he has withstood the Treasury's onslaught by not playing by their rules.
But there is a price: The Government will not give King what he wants. More damagingly still, the arguments about the Bank's role have become highly politicised. The Bank, through little fault of its own, has come to be seen as being aligned with the Tories, its sectional interest and the Bank's conception of the national economic interest geared to a Cameron win at the next election. With his outspoken utterances, the Governor seems not too bothered about the Bank being in the press; a few months ago he even dared to issue a press release slapping down Peter Mandelson, so bold has he become. Yet Mr King ought to be very concerned indeed that party politics seems to have slipped past the Bank's doormen.
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