www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1193942...owdown-20-years.html

So we all now know what we are seeing with our own eyes is true.

Spending is down massively.

The West End is being hammered. Theatre shows closing - fewer people in the pubs and restaurants. Even the weekends are now suffering.

Outside of London it is even worse with many towns losing their only entertainment venues and up to half the High Street stores are lying empty.

The shops that are open get maybe a handful of customers each day spending only on heavily discounted items.

Despite the press trying to talk things up ( To try and save their own jobs ) the reality is that the UK holiday trade is well down as well.

ANother massive set of lay offs will happen in September and then if Christmas does not come in 2009 there will be yet more in Jan 2010 leading to the worst situation since industrialisation in the UK.

and still BROWN fiddles and cares more about silly things.......and his friends at the BBC keep repeating their silly "Green shoots" stories in the hope that we all have collective amnesia about the situation.

For the first time I am actually genuinely concerned that our country could go under......and then we could see 10 million out of work......and those who remain in work seeing pay cuts of around 40%.

Thanx for cheering me up. I'm out of work and looking to get back to employment. Your 'prediction' of 10m unemployed does'nt sound too promising. Would they be saying that if there was a tory government in power??

Sad to say - no Government can make a difference now. It has been caused by the awful policies of BROWN and BUSH and their lack of response.

Too little too late.

But I will vote TORY at the next election in the hope that they can repair society so that we can have a decent future and employment for all.

Remember the influx of 1 million East Europeans taking the building - manual labour - driving - security jobs have probably put a million out of work who are UK nationals - because they have undercut the UK worker because they send their money home where it has 10 times the value it has here in spending power - so they can earn half what the UK worker earns but live twice as well ( This is never mentioned in the UK Media - it is fact - not rascist at all - just fact )

It is a shame that LABOUR have insisted that anyone who points this out is doing down the great things immigrant workers do for the UK. Labour wont admit they were not ready for this flood of immigration which has stressed out all services in the UK which are free ( education - NHS - etc )

I cant see things getting better for 5 years at least. I think anyone who is unemployed is better off using their skills to set themselves up in some sort of business - even if that is just buying and selling on E BAY at a profit.

Interestingly BR you talk about the press - our local newspaper was talking about going weekly a few months ago - this is a six day a week publication. Things are really bad from the bottom up.