Threshers thrashed

This week saw another two major retailers fall victim to the recession. the liquor store Threshers collapsed, leaving 4,000 staff unemployed. the store on Surbiton high street is already cleared out. Also in trouble is the book chain Borders, which has gone into administration but will continue trading until another buyer is found. This seems unlikely at the moment, with Waterstones not very interested. Two publishers have told me that the crisis has seen a collapse in sales of mass market books, as well as competition from internet retailers.
Economic 'growth' figures are due to be released in December, with Gordon Brown predicting that the country will be out of recession and Alastair Darling being more circumspect. But whatever the figure say, it looks as though employment won't be going up any time soon.

London weather

The temperature in the south is clearly much milder than in Manchester. People in London are rugged up when to me it barely seems like jacket weather. It has been a really mild autumn so far, with few chilly days, sunny weather and even mild nights despte the clear skies. And the sunshine is making for very concentrated colours as the leaves turn. Bad weather in London? it's like the Mediterranean down here.

BNP

BNP
The media was in uproar all week about the appearance by the leader of the British National Party, Nick Griffin MEP, on the BBC 'Question Time' programme this week. Many people thought he shouldn't have been allowed on because of his party's far-right views. The show itself was largely a name-calling exercise in which the other panel members (mostly MPs) and the audience attacked Griffin.
Despite the attacks on him, they weren't really very effective. Griffin was repeatedly cut off, when it would have been fairly easy to let him talk himself into a hole. And by continually cutting him off, the panel gave the impression of a biased event which could only give sympathizers further reason to feel aggrieved about the 'liberal elite' they feel runs the media.
worse still, none of the issues leading people to vote BNP were really addressed, mainly because the large parties are fully committed to the free-trade, deregulated, small-state agenda. At one point the Labour, Conservative, and Lib-Dem panellists were competing with each other about controlling immigration instead of defending it.
the show is very popular and respected here, but it seems to me to be just another version of talkback radio.
In the end, the BNP will probably do better out of it, but I doubt if their performance improves much more. unless the Conservative Party wins government and carries out its plan to massivle cut back public spending, which can only make social conditions worse in areas of BNP support like Stoke and Burnley.