i wonder if this has been posted, it wasn't on page 1, could someone check please [smile] …

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8552522.stm

things are "not' going to get better, have a nice day all …

Darling's predictions were always laughable

His comment that this was the worst recession in sixty years has been very true. Plus overall he has been quite accurate in his predictions. Though sometimes I think that they are over optimistic.

There's been a few that have been very optimistic, growth being one of them. Actually, growth in general it seems

Yes but those forecasts were made by the treasury civil servants. They have been wrong on quite a few occasions. Growth forecasts have been overly optimistic from the other experts as well.

Yeah, but it was still Eyebrows who announced them (probably with Flash looking over his shoulder), seemingly to keep everybody smiling...

Yes but Gordon should not get angry when the fact state that this is the worst recession in a century. It is a simple fact. I have more sympathy with the Chancellor when he states the facts. Also consider who is saying what and when. Like last week the Chartered Surveyors were saying house prices are going up. Where I live prices have gone down but not by much. People are still holding out for the top prices. Many cannot sell at a level that will not mean that they are in serious financial trouble. The best that can be hoped for is that prices stay the same while people pay off debts. Last year that the IFS Green Budget, Carl Emmerson stated that the Uk economy could take 32 years before the level of debts was at the same level last year.

Given the fact that, in terms of head count of staff the treasury is very small, and in the last 18 months they have had to become one of the biggest banks in the worked and run the G20 I thinks its a minor miracle that things have gone as well as they have.

Staff there regularly haven't gone home for days on end working right though and crashing out on the floor by their desks.

Warning hands off the HMT staff you really don't know what they have gone through.

I certainly wasn't criticising the Treasury staff. Yes they have done well, but I think that is down more to luck than planning. The Treasury civil servants are the elite of Whitehall. They probably do deserve extra pay when events like this happen. The failure of bank regulation was not down to the Treasury. Gordon was responsible for botching the regulation. Civil servants can only follow what the politicians have told them to do. I also said that others had been overly optimistic.

Sorry wasn't having a dig at you just the general trend of critising people who really are trying to do their best.

The interesting thing is that HMT get lower pay than virtually any other department at equivalent grades.

If people actually try their best I do praise them. Though if they are doing the wrong thing because of their manager, then I do not blame them but the manager. I prefer to blame those actually responsible.

I would imagine that HMT can literally walk out and get a job anywhere because they have worked at the Treasury. It probably guarantees a decent job in the City. It is the same principle of where there is high supply of applicants they can afford to offer lower salaries.

Average length of a ministerial career 1.8 years
While a civil servant can expect to retire at 65.

More like 55 or 60. I think you will find.

yes but ambitions of senior civil servants can take them into their seventies.

That is spot on yes.