Pigs obscure the green shoots

In the battle of the pigs and the green shoots, the pigs have it. 

Last week it was hysteria over swine flu; this week it's the entertaining expenses merry-go-round over snouts in the trough. This all fills airtime, but it's a shame that it obscured the serious economic story that even in the embattled US things look nowhere near as bad as some predicted, and that the recession in the UK may have bottomed out. 

Although some serious news organs have carried this, notably the consistently fair and balanced Financial Times, many others, including the BBC, seem more interested in pigs, sneezes, chandeliers and eyeliner than investigating whether the green shoots that some can see are real or illusory. 

Certainly, it needs looking into. Regenerators will be buoyed by more data this morning that there are even signs of recovery in the moribund housing market. In other news, UK retail sales have risen at their fastest rate for three years; and the decline in UK manufacturing has slowed up. 

This is all fascinating – and important to all our lives. You'd think that after the blanket coverage of the economy when things appear to be dropping off a cliff, the press would be interested when things show signs of improvement. Not so. The pigs will surely die soon, but the press will keep flogging them. 

A break in the clouds

I reckon it's worth counting back at the end of an extraordinary week in public policy, which reached its peak with the Budget, which ensured a fun-filled evening for many of my fellow journalists and a whole bunch of economists calculating the extend of the national debt. A brief flick through the papers tell us that it's about £23,000 for every person in the UK, but the figure varies depending on which paper you read – or at least believe. 

The large debt must be a concern – after all at some point we are going to have to pay it back. It is stating the obvious to point out that this can be done in a number of ways of course, either by raising taxation, cutting public services, or allowing the growth in spending on services to fall behind the growth in the economy, whenever that may come about. The latest numbers make grim reading, so it could be a while yet. 

Regen.net readers might worry that regeneration and economic development might become victims under this government or the next, simply because it is easier for a government to make cuts to such areas than it is to the the NHS or education, the two areas which are, perfectly reasonably it might be said, seen as the most important in the public's eyes. As Regeneration & Renewal will report on Monday, DCLG alone has been asked to find £100 million in so-called efficiency savings, a phrase whose meaning is sometimes inferred by many in the public sector to mean as collateral damage does to civilians in a warzone. 

So reasons to be cheerful? Well, as one tabloid pointed out, at least it is sunny. Economic confidence has improved sharply, according to the pollster Mori, perhaps due to a growing feeling that we are approaching the bottom of this slump. Retail sales are up year on year. And, the Footsie – far from a perfect science admittedly – is going to finish the week well up. And, for the next few hours at least, it is Friday, so have a good weekend and we'll be back on Monday for more. 

Budget rumours

It's Alistair Darling's Budget report on Wednesday. The Conservative Party says that the report represents a "day of reckoning" amid the worst economic crisis for decades.

The weekend newspapers were full of stories predicting of the likely contents of the Budget. Today, the Daily Mail and the Sun carried front page stories predicting that Darling will declare the recession will be over by Christmas. Here are some key announcements to look out for when the chancellor stands up in front of MPs on Wednesday afternoon:

• Darling will demand £15 billion in Whitehall efficiency cuts (The Times, BBC). The Times says that this will have "massive implications for services in the years after 2011".
• £2 billion of funding will be earmarked to pay for the recruitment of more benefits staff and a scheme to help people under the age of 25 who have been unemployed for more than a year (The Observer).
• £500 million green stimulus to shore up low carbon industries hit by the recession (Press Association).
• £50 billion package of government guarantees to kick start the housing market will be announced (Daily Telegraph). The newspaper reports that the Government will underwrite billions of pounds of new mortgage-backed assets.

We will be posting a live blog on Wednesday afternoon with news and reaction from the Budget.

Regeneration Street View snapshots #6: Trinity Quarter, Leeds

The developer of this 93,000 sq metre retail-led development announced last week that it has stalled due to the recession.

The hoardings on the Street View panel hint at the aesthetic problems this may cause for Leeds.

However, the picture below, taken from the development's live webcam, really shows the huge scar on the city centre that will be left until the development gets moving again.

Sources assure us that a plan is under development to render the vacant site less unattractive. Let's hope so.


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Silver bullet?

An interesting exchange on the Today programme this morning saw a pair of economists come forward with ideas that they say - in all seriousness - would end the recession in a few weeks. The duo argue the root cause of the slump is a lack of cash in the economy, so increasing the money supply to encourage transactions and get prices moving again is key. 

Professor Tim Congdon says that, rather than Government lending billions to the banks, the banks should lend £100 billion to the Government - which could then make payments to businesses. Congdon did not define what sort of payments those might be - but I'd like to see that cash go towards training and staff development, a role that is currently performed by soon-to-be abolished Government agency the Learning and Skills Council and to a lesser extent by the regional development agencies. Congdon points out that most banks are keen to lend to the Government as it has a AAA credit rating. 

Also on the show, Danny Gabay has an idea for those who have got into trouble with their mortgages. He recommends that the Government buy back their homes at a price they would fetch at auction - typically a 20 per cent reduction - then rent them back to the occupiers. In time, the occupiers would be offered the chance to buy them back. I wonder if the Homes & Communities Agency will launch similar schemes - they help occupiers stay in their homes and give the Government a cut price asset and revenue stream. 

I'm afraid I'm nothing like as confident as Congdon and Gabay that their innovative measures could pull us out of this blasted slump by Easter, or even this year. But, in world where we see far too much backside-covering by economists, I do admire this pair for making a clear forecast of how long it would take for their measures to have an effect.