Apparently the UK has secured a more stable rating.

One of the credit rating agencies considers that the rating of the United Kingdom economy is more secure following the public spending review of George Osborne, where
spending is going up in nominal terms. However, quite a few domestic commentators are concerned about the widening gap between north and south. There is the argument that if the regions did not create many private sector jobs when things were good, then they are unlikely to do so after public sector job losses.

If the public sector job losses are decided by the bureaucrats, then they will be safe and front-line services will be hit. My health services have already been affected and the NHS is supposed to be safe with the Coalition government! In the Greater London area Enfield and Sidcup, A&E services are to be "reconfigured". Just hope the ambulances can go faster to reach their longer destinations in time.

In the "New Statesman" US-based economist Danny Blanchflower is pretty scathing about the economic experiment of George Osborne but the recent quarterly GDP figure of 0.8 pct growth is not bad and maybe the British economy might be lucky. However,
lifting exports is going to be hard with such an unbalanced economy.

Benedict Brogan opines on the invisible Mr Brown.

In today's Daily Telegraph Benedict Brogran opines on the invisibility of UK Premier
Mr Gordon Brown in the fall-out of the Lockerbie affair.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/benedict-brogan/6128163/David-Camerons-lesson-in-leadership-for-a-Prime-Minister-in-retreat.html
Other Labour ministers have gone missing with the exception of Lord Peter Mandelson.
Apparently, the British Prime Minister is cautious and cannot reply to a straight question with a direct answer. Quite a few people in the Labour Party harboured suspicions about the capability of Mr Brown (was'nt he a landscape specialist?) but did not bother to share them with the UK electorate. This was when he was elected by his party in a Stalinist style vote. Even the North Koreans would have been proud of the vote recieved by Mr Brown in the Labour leadership election, although it was called a "coronation". I bet some Labour MPs in English marginals are regretting the coronation now.
Changing tbe subject today has seen the publication of a McKinsey management consultants report advising the elimination of one in ten jobs in the National Health Service (NHS), which has been much maligned in the United States recently with the Republican attacks on the Obama health reforms. I think something is going to give. However, if you do have job cuts the NHS bureaucrats will protect themselves while the number of doctors and nurses will be reduced.
However, normal rules do not seem to apply to the NHS with its high sickie rates, although it is a relatively cheap way in terms of percentage of GDP to provide health care for a country. I suppose both the UK and US health systems need reforming
and it will be interesting to see what will happen. Eliminating jobs and positions would be a quick way of saving money for the NHS but it would be very disruptive in the long term.

Here goes "British jobs for British workers!"

I try and avoid any mention of race, ethnic origin, immigration and migration because
you bound to put peoples' backs up. But the debate over "British jobs for British workers" raises quite a few issues. To state my own ethnic orign, I am white, born and living in London. I subscribe to the OneWorldWeek mantra, 5.7bn people but one humanity.

When it comes to the crunch HM Government is only responsible for its own citizens. If all the UK jobs are being taken by foreigners, then of course the government will impose restrictions on entry even if they are EU citizens. I think the Irish government was recently close to imposing restrictions on
Eastern Europeans.

This leads to the possibility that the current social composition of the United Kingdom is not helping us to cope with the economic downturn. If more indigenous workers are losing their jobs than foreign workers this will cause resentment.
Until recently we have had a pretty good run economically and despite this certain groups of foreign people are already unpopular with the
local population.

There is the mantra that immigration helps the economy grow but HM government carefully avoids doing studies on such a contentious area. MigrationWatch and the Economist have done studies, which point to a negligible contribution after the
inclusion of social costs. There have been studies about the Mexican wave in the United States but the scale of remittances makes it difficult to assess the level of economic contribution.

Foreign workers bring drive and enthusiasm. They keep the NHS afloat. We live in a global world and benefit from the trade links they bring. I don't think we could survive without Indian restaurants. Hard-working Eastern Europeans keep farms working throughout the United Kingdom. It is a very competitive world out there and companies, football clubs and businesses have long moved to getting the best people in. Glaxo appointed a Frenchman to live in the United States to manage a flagship UK business. It possibly did not work out in this case but we still need foreign talent to compete.

In conclusion, I believe in 5.7bn people and one humanity. I hope I have'nt annoyed my readers too much. We need a resumption of economic growth to mask/hide/resolve the tensions in the population. The benefits of immigration are probably overplayed (we are having a major economic downturn despite our high level of immigration?).

www.searchaccountant.co.uk
PS. Nobody is afraid of Gordon Brown anymore. The head of the statistics body ONS has just released some damaging statistics for HM Government on the number of foreign workers in the UK. Apparently, Labour MP Keith Vaz, who had some colourful finances, was fulminating against the release of these
statistics.

Gordon Brown emphasises British values?

In his Labour Party conference speech yesterday UK prime minister Gordon Brown
emphasised British values. For most people being British is just something on the
passport. The only British institutions seem to be the Royal Family and the Armed Forces. One thing in favour of Scottish independence is that the country is almost
there already with different legal and educational systems. It has been a long
time since Scotland has been referred to as North Britain.
Apparently, the prime minister wants to fight the next election on health. However,
the NHS is not a British institution. In Scotland and Wales there are different
spending levels. If you actually go into a NHS hospital does it feel British? How very
British for the English National Health Service to face claims of £4.5bn for alleged
blunders by doctors and nurses in maternity services. In fact, maternity services
are close to collapse in my part of England because of "reconfiguration" and of
non-British demand.