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Britain?s stuttering economy: Double-dip trouble

AN APPALLING month for David Cameron?s gaffe-prone government took a turn for the worse this week with the revelation that the economy has not, after all, clawed its way clear of recession. Preliminary figures released on April 25th showed that GDP shrank by 0.2% in the first three months of 2012 (at an annualised rate of 0.8%), following a drop of 0.3% in the last quarter of 2011. When Britain emerged in 2009 from the deep recession that followed the financial crisis, the hope was that the economy had enough momentum to maintain a modest recovery, even while the fiscal deficit was being dealt with. But growth, never robust, has stuttered since the fourth quarter of 2010 (see first chart). Now it has stalled, leaving output lower than it was in late 2010.

Nobody expected miracles, but the figures were surprisingly poor. On the basis of earlier surveys,...
The Leveson inquiry: Fatal attraction

Press regulation?s poster boys
THE problem with Rupert Murdoch and his clan, most critics would agree, is that they are too close to politicians. Ministers and opposition leaders have long cosied up to News International, his British newspaper company?and the attraction is mutual. But this week, at Lord Justice Leveson?s long-running inquiry into press misconduct, the intimacy gave way to bunny-boiling acrimony. Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, was the main victim.Mr Hunt?s misfortunes stem from the Murdochs? bid to acquire full control of BSkyB, a British satellite broadcaster, beginning in 2010. News Corporation already controlled the company through a 39% shareholding. But politicians and media rivals fearful of the firm?s heft (it owns four national British newspapers) fought hard against the purchase. Some wanted it blocked on the ground that it would erode media plurality. Others called for the bid to be referred to the Competition Commission?a slow, unpredictable process that the Murdochs were anxious to avoid.E-mails and text messages published on April 24th by Lord Justice...
Internship

The Britain section will soon be choosing an intern to work for several months this summer. Applicants should send a letter and an article of about 600 words that they think would be suitable for publication. A small stipend will be paid. Applications must reach britainintern@economist.com
by May 31st.
Bagehot: The pen is mightier

WHEN Britain?s biggest tabloid claimed credit for a Conservative general election victory with the front-page headline ?It?s the Sun wot won it?, its proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, was not pleased. Giving evidence on April 25th to a public inquiry on press ethics, Mr Murdoch explained that he had administered ?a terrible bollocking? to the Sun?s then editor, Kelvin MacKenzie. A ?tasteless? claim, he said. ?We don?t have that sort of power.?The inquiry?chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, a judge?this week shone a light on ties between the media and politicians. The most dangerous revelations were e-mails apparently detailing contacts between News Corporation, Mr Murdoch?s company, and David Cameron?s government during the firm?s abortive bid to buy BSkyB, a satellite-television outfit. The relationship was sometimes friendly, sometimes tense, but always close?and rarely craven on the part of the media firm.Another milestone in the Sun?s political coverage does not seem to have earned a proprietorial rebuke. It happened in 1992, on the night that...
Local elections: Day of dread

Look out behind you, Mr Johnson
SINCE the budget provoked a din of disapproval last month, Downing Street has been looking forward to May 3rd. The losses likely to be sustained in elections across 180 local authorities would be modest for a mid-term government, they calculated. And those losses would be sidelined by the re-election of the Conservative Boris Johnson (pictured, with Labour?s Ken Livingstone) as mayor of London.The government now dreads polling day. It is no longer afflicted by minor embarrassments over the taxation of hot snacks and charitable donations, but by grave questions over the future of Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, and its own economic credibility following Britain?s re-entry into recession. The Tories? plummeting national poll ratings?the party trails Labour by a double-digit margin in some surveys?is dragging down Mr Johnson. Polls tend to show him modestly ahead of Mr Livingstone, but they have become erratic. Defeat for the incumbent would heighten the impression of a government under siege.Moreover, the Tories are likely to be mauled in local...
Crowdfunding football: Buy this team

FOOTBALL fans are used to being squeezed by their beloved clubs through rising ticket prices, regular strip changes and stiff charges for food and programmes. They have rarely been asked to bail out the clubs directly. In Britain?unlike Germany, say?football clubs are generally limited-liability companies, the top ones often owned by rich foreigners. But fans of Portsmouth Football Club hope to change that tradition.Portsmouth was relegated from the Premier League in 2010, and will plunge to the third division next season. The club went into administration in February 2010 and again in February 2012. The Pompey Supporters Trust is now canvassing for interest in a takeover of the club by supporters. Fans are asked to put �100 ($160) into an escrow account. If enough do so, a community share scheme to buy the team will be created, with shares at �1,000.Until an arrangement has been reached with creditors, it is not clear how much a community buy-out will cost. But a quick survey outside the team?s ground before a recent game found fans in theoretically generous mood: ?�1,000? and ?as much as I have? were common...
Northern Ireland: Thin skins, thick bills

WELL-CELLARED bile is the mainstay of political memoirs and can attract lawsuits from those who recall events differently. But ?Outside In? by Peter Hain, Labour?s Northern Ireland secretary from 2005 to 2007, is making legal history.Mr Hain is being prosecuted in Belfast on the antique charge of ?scandalising the court?. The case concerns his account of an arcane twist of the peace process in 2006 when he appointed a policeman?s widow to report on the scope of a proposed new victims? commissioner. Aimed at assuaging people outraged at the release of paramilitaries, the move was contested in court?a common event in a system that long lacked its own political institutions.In his book Mr Hain skates over the details of the case, which he terms an ?irritating sideshow?. But he lets rip at the ?lucrative lawyers? industry? created by the local penchant for judicial review. And he attacks Lord Justice Girvan as ?off his rocker?, ?high-handed? and ?idiosyncratic? in asking the attorney-general to investigate whether Mr Hain perverted the course of justice. He recalls wondering if a new property-tax reform had annoyed the judge; and he briefly hesitated before confirming his promotion to the appeal court.Published in January, Mr Hain?s account made only a modest splash. But it did bring an incendiary response from the province?s most senior judge, Sir Declan Morgan. Far from being...
Urban design: Road warriors

You?ll never walk alone
FITTINGLY for a free-trading nation, Britain imports a lot of policy wheezes from overseas. One can now be seen in Exhibition Road, a west London street that contains the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. At a cost of almost �30m ($47m) and over three years, this 800-metre-long thoroughfare has been converted into the country?s largest ?shared space?. Road markings and kerbs have mostly gone, and it is no longer entirely clear what is pavement and what is road.The approach, which was pioneered by Hans Monderman in the Netherlands, is supposed to promote safety and ease congestion. Removing bossy signs, traffic lights and the distinction between road and pavement prompts drivers and pedestrians to pay more attention to each other, or so the theory goes. Towns and cities in Denmark, Germany and Sweden have abolished such distractions and reported fewer accidents.In some ways the British version is half-hearted. To reach the South Kensington museums, visitors must still cross a busy four-lane road using traffic lights....
The battle for Glasgow: Two left feet

IT IS not merely a party stronghold, but a place where history was made. Glasgow was one of the cities in which Labour began to take shape a century ago. The party has ruled the city council for the past 32 years. If Glasgow is seized by the Scottish National Party (SNP) in local elections on May 3rd it will be an acute humiliation for Ed Miliband, Labour?s leader?worse even than the party?s trouncing by George Galloway, an independent left-winger, in a parliamentary by-election in Bradford West last month.Labour?s local problems first emerged in 2007. The introduction of proportional representation on the single transferable vote system to Scottish council elections that year ended the tradition by which Labour won roughly nine-tenths of the council?s 79 seats. But Labour still managed to get 45 councillors elected, a comfortable enough majority. The SNP was in second place with 22 seats.Then things began to go seriously wrong. Faced with spending cuts, Labour accelerated a programme of devolving services, including housing and building work, to arm?s-length bodies that were meant to run things more commercially. But opponents and the media soon began questioning the contracts, and pointing out that Labour councillors were earning fat salaries on the boards of those bodies. The council leader resigned in 2010, citing exhaustion. In the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections...

The Economist: Britain Thu, 26 April 2012 15:02:44 GMT

Brochure Design London - Brochure Design London
...d I absolutely love every minute of my work. I open up the office every day and, as the receptionist, I am the first point of contact with everyone who walks through the door. brochure design London is a very competitive business so we need to make sure that the image of our business is set at the right standard the minute people walk in. To this end I am given a clothing allowance to make sure that I make absolutely the right impression and I always make sure that I am immaculately turned out. I love working in brochure design London and no two days are ever the same. One of the things I love the most about my job is how easy everyone is to get along with and we have such a good laugh in the office that it often does not feel like work at all. We also sometimes meet some very important people and it is always in...
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Brand Identity - Brand Identity
...say that your brand identity speaks positively about you as company? If you feel that your current brand image might be perceived as being rather weak then perhaps you need to reinvent it and make sure that it is communicating at the right level. Sometimes this is easier said than done, as it can be difficult for you to step back and examine something that you have become accustomed to over the years. Due to this outside help could be highly fruitful and experts could be brought in who specialise in the design of brand identity. In the first instance it will be crucial to find out where the core problem exists. That is to say, the problem within the exiting brand needs to be examined so that suitable solutions can be developed. Previous marketing campaigns might have failed and you need to figure out why. The most obvious conclusion will be the choice of marketing moguls...
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Pr Surveys - Pr Surveys
...ustomers feel about your company and the services that it offers them? How can you improve the services in the future unless you can establish what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong? A series of PR Surveys could put you in a clearer picture and let you make changes that will benefit your firm in the future. You might want certain feedback about a particular brand or want to use the PR Surveys to weigh up public opinion about your company in general. Fast and accurate data can be provided by a team of professionals in market research who can complete the PR Surveys in a wide range of time scales. It could be that you require the information rather quickly and if this is the case 24 hour surveys can be conducted that can guarantee 2000 respondents in such a short space of time. Time might not be of such an issue for you ...
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Corporate Training - Corporate Training
...t in the work place than having a united team working together for the same goal. In the current climate stress levels with in the work place are rising, so it is key to ensure that your team stay united. One way of ensuring this is to take part in a Corporate training event. There is a massive range of different types of team building activities available, both indoor and outdoor, for your team to take part in. Their variety of safe team building activities suit all that attend the event and none of the challenges that are offered are over strenuous. All of their Corporate training challenges are designed to bring out keys skills within the individuals which then can be taken back to the work place. The choices for your Corporate training include activities as diverse as learning circus skills such as plate spinning, to taking part in army style operat...
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Brochure Design - Brochure Design
...an create the right look. You`ll be able to place all of your products in one place and let your customers leaf through the pages at their pleasure. Of course, a comprehensive brochure design takes quite a lot of thought to come up with the desired results. You don`t want a brochure design that looks bland and uninteresting as potential customers will want to cast it to one side....
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Paid Online Surveys - Paid Online Surveys
...a way to earn some extra money towards a holiday or maybe you just need a little extra income to help tide you over at the moment? If you think any of this applies to you then why not take a look at some of the Paid online surveysorganisations that are currently offering you paid work from the comfort of your own home. All of the work can be completed online, and with easy to follow instructions you can soon be earning a little extra pocket money for just taking part in Paid online surveys. The more surveys you participate in, the more you can earn. Typically the service provider will have 20 to 30 active polls at any one time, so there is always an opportunity to earn. Once you`re registered - for free ? with your chosen agency your account opens and you start earning. So why not take a look and register today. You will be working for some of the biggest brands in th...
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Spiral Bound Book Printing - Spiral Bound Book Printing
...sturdy, attractive document binding style is called spiral bound book printing . In the professional and business world, you can use spiral bound book printing for everything from creating and producing marketing and presentation materials, proposals and reports, to in-house documents - employee manuals, benefits packages, and even directories. You can suddenly have the flexibility to create all these documents and many more easily and quickly. There is literally no end to creative, unique and how many uses you can get with spiral bound book printing . They are an easy and highly efficient way of communicating with your employees, business partners/colleagues and of course customers/ potential customers. It is however quite important for you to make use of personal metaphors in your designing such as wild lives, animals, plants, birds, flowers, floors, and landscape images. Th...
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Cd Label Printing - Cd Label Printing
...ractive as well as intelligent and he also happens to be very solvent to boot! He owns a business which does cd label printing and seems to be doing very well indeed out of this venture. I met him the other night and was really pleasantly surprised. He was really good company and very funny as well. When he got onto the subject of his cd label printing business I was fully prepared to be bored to sleep. However, this was absolutely not the case. I was absolutely amazed that somebody could talk for quite a long time about cd label printing and still make me, my husband and my friend laugh throughout. We had a really good night together. We started off with cocktails in the local bar and then went for dinner at a really good local restaurant. There were absolutely no awkward silences whatso...
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Recruitment Consultancy Richmond - Recruitment Consultancy Richmond
...hen it comes to finding the ideal work placement who would you turn to for help? Would you know where all the right job websites were and would you consider going to a recruitment consultancy for help? One leading recruitment consultancy is based in Richmond and they can help candidates find their ideal positions. It doesn�??t matter if you are looking for temporary or permanent work because they have numerous positions on their systems. It could be a high flying role in a marketing company or your first full time job in HR that you require. Once you contact the recruitment consultancy richmond they�??ll work their hardest to get you into the role of your dreams. You might wonder how the process works when you register with the recruitment consultancy richmond. Firstly, upon registration, you�??ll visit one of the consultants that works for the recruitment company. They�??ll inter...
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Revit Families - Revit Families
...ign and, as such, she trains many architects, designers and engineers on how to improve their designs. One of the more recent technologies to emerge is that of Revit families. These Revit families make it much easier to design and, as such, she has a great deal of people wanting training on them. In fact, she is so busy with people asking for help with Revit families that she has had to employ more staff to deal with the training. This is a really happy situation for her to be in, particularly in the present economic climate and she is really thankful for all the extra work. Last week, she had a training seminar and the room was so packed there were not enough computers for everyone to work on. She realises that she needs to make some changes in order to make sure that situations like this do not happen again. She will...
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