Over the last few days, the City’s stock market suffered turmoil as fears of a recession took hold. Panicky traders decided to sell their shares in a desperate bid to cut their losses. But although we have been in this situation before, the situation could be different now.

The situation in the UK could, in a worse case scenario, become extremly acute, because the nation hardly produces actual goods and services that can be sold any more. Our economy is too heavily dependent on the financial activities in the City’s square mile. Most of the country’s manufacturing plants and vital infrastructure are in the hands of foreign companies (and governments), which means that in the event of an economic slowdown, they will want to cut back…. and UK plants would be first in the firing line for any closures, putting thousands of people out of work through no fault of their own.

It’s not just the fear of unemployment that’s a worry. Many people are wondering whether the latest share falls will affect their already meagre pensions and savings (thanks for that, Gordon Brown) as major high street banks also suffer heavy losses. If predictions are right, then the problem would only get worse and may continue for a long time before the markets will start to recover.

While we are still on the subject of the government’s failure to tackle crime, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced plans to fit metal detectors in schools to deter knife crime.

She said in an interview with the BBC:

“I think that it’s a good idea if we look at the ways which in some schools it might be appropriate to use search arches- because I don’t want young people to know that it doesn’t make them safer to carry a knife.

“It actually makes them more likely to be a victim.”

Excuse me, who is going to pay for this? Is the Home Office going to pay? Will local councils have to cut other front-line services to support your pet project?

Hate to sound cynical, but to me this is yet another knee-jerk government policy aimed at telling an already over-cynical public that something is being done. No resources will be made available to enable councils and voluntary groups to provide decent after-school and youth facilities…. no commitment to delivering outreach services to hard -to- reach groups….. and certainly no change in social policy that should aim to tackle the horrifying causes of knife crime in young people.

Like all previous government “initiatives”, this plan will almost certainly fail…

Well, well…. for the first time in a long time we have heard a government minister tell it as it is on the UK’s ever rampant crime wave… and yet, she got herself in trouble for it.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is in hot water after confessing in a newspaper interview that she feared walking the streets of London at night (London’s not even safe during the day, either). Not surprisingly, this was seized on by the opposition parties, one MP said that what she said was, I quote: “an astonishing admission.”

What is so astonishing that a government minister fears for his or her life just walking around the streets of London? Smith had stated the bloody obvious about crime in the capital. It’s the same across the country… people are getting mugged, beaten, burgled or even having your own identity stolen. The government has tried every trick in the book to tackle the crisis, but nothing has changed…. the situation continues to get worse.

Maybe her admission… and the political fallout from this… will enable her to put forward sensible and practical long-term proposals to tackling crime in this country.

A major body of building surveyors warned that house prices in Britain could fall in 2008. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) say they may fall to an extent not seen since the 1990s.

Some factors for the price falls are interest rate rises (which affect how much homeowners pay each month) and the fact that many banks have imposed stricter lending policies.

HOORAY!

House price falls mean that the new batch of homes put up for sale will be cheaper to buy. House prices in Britain, particularly in the South East, are unrealistically high, due to the fact that the number of properties being built each year has fallen in real terms (it’s in line with government policy). The demand for new homes has never been greater, but the supply has never kept up.

There needs to be a major campaign to increase the number of new homes built each year in order to tackle the real crisis. Surely a home for most people should be a place to live, not a virtual cash cow.