The big question is - are we over the hump? Are there any green shoots of recovery about? Will I ever be safe again? However you put it, it all amounts to same thing, Britannia has definitely suffered a big blow. We are all poorer, whether we had investments in property, saving, stocks and shares, antiques, whatever. We may as well have staggered into a casino and plonked it all on red (or was it black?) and took a chance, because the government are taking a chance for us. It is a classic case of the blind leading the blind over the precipice. Yet life goes on.
Perhaps the newly rendered poor and jobless stay in and watch television maybe without a license. If they do then the news programmes bring little comfort. This Labour Government must have known something in swelling the ranks of the state employed sector. They are the only people whose jobs are sort of safe and they can continue to enjoy not TV but the theatre and an even a better life style as prices in the shop drops and mortgage payments descend into negative territory.
So who else is doing OK? Well we know the odd pawnbroker, as opposed to porn-broker, who will enjoy a rather more luxurious holiday than normal. Certainly bailiffs and company receivers are keeping quiet about there pestiferous trades. I believe the sector embracing hairdressers, nail parlours, teeth whiteners, body piercers have little to grumble about.
How about trying to get an office cleaner for less than double minimum wage? I notice job agencies are offering special deals now: have a keen, new member of staff for NIL commission and if he/she sticks to the task for a month we will bill you as normal. Somehow though we Brits will overcome this adversity, out will come the Dunkirk spirit if not the old Scotch spirit because we are used to eating out, driving nice cars, having our 2 jolly holidays
a year and getting pie-eyed on festive occasions. How can we stay in and hide when our neighbour doesn't seem to be affected? Yet I feel it is those noble motivations, envy and cunning which will pull us out of the trough of despair.