Okay, I (sorry, we) have finally completed the revised Blended Learning paper – it involves Sheila and Dr. Cho Cho too, and I have emailed the final copy to the University yesterday morning – although it’s 2 days past the deadline.
Just to illustrate how dreadfully bad the UK economic situation is, I scanned BBC News Online today, and discovered these alarming revelations:
The UK economy is set to shrink by 4.5% in this year, the biggest fall in a single year since 1945, according to an influential think tank, The Ernst & Young Item Club. The downbeat forecast is more pessimistic than the consensus view, and considerably worse than the 3.5% fall predicted by the government.
Total outstanding government debt in the UK has risen to a record £799 billion, or 56.6% of UK GDP – the highest since records began in 1974. The figures reflecting the state of public finances also include the cost of bank bail-outs and higher spending on social security benefits.
A National Audit Office report said that tax receipts fell by 10% in the past year – the biggest fall since 1923.
About 15% of High Street shops will be empty by the end of 2009, the British Retail Consortium has predicted. This would be more than double the 7% of stores which were vacant at the start of the year. And currently, about 12% of town centre shops were empty, the BRC said.
UK unemployment rose by a record 281,000 to 2.38 million in the three months to May, the Office for National Statistics has said. The jobless rate increased to 7.6%, the highest in more than 10 years. Young people – those up to 24 years old – have been particularly hard hit with unemployment leaping to a 16-year high of 726,000. And the number of those out of work for more than a year rose by 46,000 to 528,000, the highest for 11 years.
The Office for National Statistics said that in the three months to May 927,000 people said they were working part time because could not find a full-time job. The figure is a third more than a year ago and is the highest number since the ONS began collating the data in 1992.
Just to illustrate how dreadfully bad the UK economic situation is, I scanned BBC News Online today, and discovered these alarming revelations:
The UK economy is set to shrink by 4.5% in this year, the biggest fall in a single year since 1945, according to an influential think tank, The Ernst & Young Item Club. The downbeat forecast is more pessimistic than the consensus view, and considerably worse than the 3.5% fall predicted by the government.
Total outstanding government debt in the UK has risen to a record £799 billion, or 56.6% of UK GDP – the highest since records began in 1974. The figures reflecting the state of public finances also include the cost of bank bail-outs and higher spending on social security benefits.
A National Audit Office report said that tax receipts fell by 10% in the past year – the biggest fall since 1923.
About 15% of High Street shops will be empty by the end of 2009, the British Retail Consortium has predicted. This would be more than double the 7% of stores which were vacant at the start of the year. And currently, about 12% of town centre shops were empty, the BRC said.
UK unemployment rose by a record 281,000 to 2.38 million in the three months to May, the Office for National Statistics has said. The jobless rate increased to 7.6%, the highest in more than 10 years. Young people – those up to 24 years old – have been particularly hard hit with unemployment leaping to a 16-year high of 726,000. And the number of those out of work for more than a year rose by 46,000 to 528,000, the highest for 11 years.
The Office for National Statistics said that in the three months to May 927,000 people said they were working part time because could not find a full-time job. The figure is a third more than a year ago and is the highest number since the ONS began collating the data in 1992.
If you are British, you can get really spooked today…
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