Enquiring minds might find this table from SocGen of passing interest,

The standout lines are that the French and Belgiums earn more per hour than do German workers, which is a straight turnaround from 2000 when the Germans made more per hour. 

That of course suggests that the Germans suffered relatively poor wage gains but stayed competitive with low unemployment and strong exports.

Everyone else saw wages go up, and competitiveness reduce and now they're looking for German handouts.

 Except the UK where earnings per hour have fallen dramatically since 2008 which is demonstrative of the British taking their medicine.

Onlookers should remember, many things have gone very wrong in the UK but to our credit we started to face up to problems immediately after the crisis. There is a ton of unfinished work in the UK but at the time, the French swept most of their bad news under the carpet and hoisted a sign that said, "no problems here (especially in their banks), nothing to see, move along now." 

Guess what.... your problem, grow up, stop whinging and deal with it.

I'm a bit late with this but it's good to have it on the blog, both for those who may have missed it and as a matter of record.

Frederick Forsyth, author of some thundering good reads and Express colunmist, has penned an open letter to the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. Couldn't have put it better myself; this should be a mandatory read for Cleggites and their ilk.

"Dear Madame Chancellor, 

PERMIT me to begin this letter with a brief description of my knowledge of, and affection for, your country.

I first came to Germany as a boy student aged 13 in 1952, two years before you were born. After three extended vacations with German families who spoke no English I found at the age of 16 and to my pleasure that I could pass for German among Germans.

In my 20s I was posted as a foreign correspondent to East Germany in 1963, when you would have been a schoolgirl just north of East Berlin where I lived.

I know Germany, Frau Merkel, from the alleys of Hamburg to the spires of Dresden, from the Rhine to the Oder, from the bleak Baltic coast to the snows of the Bavarian Alps. I say this only to show you that I am neither ignoramus nor enemy.

I also had occasion in those years to visit the many thousands of my countrymen who held the line of the Elbe against 50,000 Soviet main battle tanks and thus kept Germany free to recover, modernise and prosper at no defence cost to herself.

And from inside the Cold War I saw our decades of effort to defeat the Soviet empire and set your East Germany free.

I was therefore disappointed last Friday to see you take the part of a small and vindictive Frenchman in what can only be seen as a targeted attack on the land of my fathers.

We both know that every country has at least one aspect of its society or economy that is so crucial, so vital that it simply cannot be conceded.

For Germany it is surely your automotive sector, your car industry.

Any foreign-sourced measure to target German cars and render them unsaleable would have to be opposed to vetopoint by a German chancellor.

For France it is the agricultural sector. For more than 50 years members of the EU have been taxed under the terms of the Common Agricultural Policy in order to subsidise France’s agriculture. Indeed, the CAP has been the cornerstone of every EU budget since the first day.

Attack it and France fights back.

For us the crucial corner of our economy is the financial services industry. Although parts of it exist all over the country it is concentrated in that part of London known even internationally as “the City”.

It is not just a few greedy bankers; we both have those but the City is far more. It is indeed a vast banking agglomeration of more banks than anywhere else in the world.

But that is the tip of the iceberg. Also in the City is the world’s greatest concentration of insurance companies.

Add to that the brokers; traders in stocks and shares worldwide, second only, and then maybe not, to Wall Street. But it is not just stocks.

The City is also home to the “exchanges” of gold and precious metals, diamonds, base metals, commodities, futures, derivatives, coffee, cocoa… the list goes on and on.

And it does not yet touch upon shipping, aviation, fuels, energy, textiles… enough. Suffice to say the City is the biggest and busiest marketplace in the world.

It makes the Paris Bourse look like a parish council set against the United Nations and even dwarfs your Frankfurt many times.

That, surely, is the point of what happened in Brussels. The French wish to wreck it and you seem to have agreed. Its contribution to the British economy is not simply useful nor even merely valuable.

It is absolutely crucial. The financial services industry contributes 10 per cent of our Gross Domestic Product and 17.5 per cent of our taxation revenue.

A direct and targeted attack on the City is an attack on my country. But that, although devised in Paris, is what you have chosen to support.

You seem to have decided that Britain is once again Germany’s enemy, a situation that has not existed since 1945.

I deeply regret this but the choice was yours and entirely yours. The Transaction Tax or Tobin Tax you reserve the right to impose would not even generate money for Brussels.

It would simply lead to massive emigration from London to other havens. Long ago it was necessary to live in a city to trade in it.

In the days when deals can flash across the world in a nanosecond all a major brokerage needs is a suite of rooms, computers, telephones and the talent of the young people barking offers and agreements down the phone.

Such a suite of rooms could be in Berne, Thun, Zurich or even Singapore. Under your Tobin Tax tens of thousands would leave London.

This would not help Brussels, it would simply help destroy the British economy.

Your conference did not even save the euro. Permit me a few home truths about it. The euro is a Franco-German construct.

It was a German chancellor (Kohl) who ordered a German banker (Karl Otto Pohl) to get together with a French civil servant (Delors) on the orders of a French president (Mitterrand) and create a common currency.

Which they did. IT was a flawed construct. Like a ship with a twisted hull it might float in calm water but if it ever hit a force eight it would probably founder.

Even then it might have worked for it was launched with a manual of rules, the Growth And Stability Pact. If the terms of that book of rules had been complied with the Good Ship Euro might have survived.

But compliance was entrusted to the European Central Bank which catastrophically failed to insist on that compliance.

Rules governing the growing of cucumbers are more zealously enforced. This was a European Bank in a German city under a French president and it failed in its primary, even its sole, duty.

This had everything to do with France and Germany and nothing whatever to do with Britain.

Yet in Brussels last week the EU pack seemed intent only on venting its spleen on the country that wisely refused to abolish its pound.

You did not even address yourselves to saving the euro but only to seeking a way to ensure it might work in some future time.

But the euro will not be saved. It is crumbling now. And since you have now turned against my country, from this side of the Channel, Madame Chancellor, one can only say of the euro: YOU MADE IT, YOU MEND IT."

Which one is Carson?

(Correct answer will be picked at random out of a hat and the unlucky winner will be tied to a chair and made to watch the Downton Abbey Christmas Special twice)

Mrs Flashbang issued an ultimatum last night over dinner. Adopting teenagespeak she said, rather sternly, “I’m just putting it out there, but whatever happens on Christmas Day, I’m watching Downton Abbey at 9 o’clock.” Silence followed until the youngest boy bravely went on the offensive with, “So, that means we won’t be having our annual family Monopoly argument then?”

Bloody Downton Abbey; I can’t stand it. It’s a pernicious attack on normal family life and I can see the boys and I will be forced to adapt our normal Christmas routine and retreat to the nether regions of the house to build, assemble and repair something that was unwrapped earlier in the day. With this in mind I may well have to do a quick reappraisal of the Christmas gift list and augment it with something suitable. Incidentally, anyone else noticed that the daft butler Carson bears more than a striking resemblance to Parker in Thunderbirds? The only difference is Parker was more realistic. 

So, there I was concerned about being the reluctant recipient of unwanted frivolous tat disguised as birthday gifts and to my very pleasant surprise Mrs Flashbang hit the target square on with the first delicately wrapped package. 

Years ago, when living the bachelor life, an old Army friend came to stay at the flat for the weekend. He stayed for three years. One of the characteristics of living with Tim was the never ending stream of pretty girls who used to grace the flat. One, and goodness knows where he found her, was something big in advertising in Manhattan and whenever she flew in, I flew out. Thing is, she was a screamer and I couldn't get a wink of sleep whenever she was in town. Poor Tim was a wreck after every visit and in fact, it used to take both of us days to recover from her exertions. She talked a lot too; non stop in fact and even worse, she didn't much like our local pub so it was inevitable that she'd eventually get the heave which was a relief to me, the load bearing furniture, our local landlord who saw his beer sales enjoy an immediate recovery and most of all Tim who I don't think has ever quite recovered. 

A few days after he said the last goodbye Tim threw a bottle of aftershave over to me which had been a gift from the Screamer. He didn't like it, I did and I've used it ever since. I think it's very possibly the best aftershave in the world. If you're a man and you don't believe me just buy some, try it and wait for the reaction from the Missus. If you're a girl and you're looking for a last minute gift then just trust old Crumble and buy some for the Old Man.

Just think, there could be hundreds and blokes out there on Christmas day smelling like Mental Crumble and wondering why the wife / girlfriend has started screaming......

It's your world weary correspondents birthday tomorrow.... yippee and so on; can't wait to see what the austerity fairy is going to conjure up this year.

It's always a stressful time. I'm not very good at accepting clearly ridiculous and useless birthday gifts with the grace and gratitude that good manners and civility demand; never have been. It's not very grown up though and every year I struggle with the temptation to ask, "Did you keep the receipt?" So I'm going to give it another bash and try to be a good boy and make everyone feel warm and fluffy and I promise I won't go straight on to the internet to upgrade my birthday with some secret Dad shopping.

If I acted though, like some of these kids, Mrs Flashbang would hit me so hard and fast I'd think I was surrounded. Still, I think they've got a point............

Given his recent uptick in output our old chum Dirk must be living a life of increased frustration as he battles against everyday life, to just get through his day. Here he is on Post Office queues,

"It's ironic that the only time I'm struck by a fit of meanness so bad that I have to buy second-class stamps is when it's to send Christmas cards. 

Normally I'd default to the corner shop but with time to kill between trains I found myself lured by the bright lights into the Post Office in William IV St. It's strangely exotic in there, a bit like the old Teminal 3 at Heathrow (before 4 or 5 were needed), heaving with customers clutching parcels and a little boarding-pass ticket, waiting patiently for their 'flight' to the window to be called over the tannoy. Alternatively there is the rank of automatic machines for frequent flyers and I took my place in this queue convinced that this would be quicker. 

How hard could it be? What was so tricky that the idiots up ahead were holding everybody up so badly? When it came to my turn I set to with breezy confidence but was thwarted by the fact that it would only do 1st class stamps. Rage, instant rage but from nowhere a member of PO staff appeared and sensing a potentially tricky customer took over. The machine, (Wincor Nixdorf note), was not yet equipped to do 2nd class stamps but alternatively I could get the equivalent postage label, "would that be fine Sir?" Yes it would I'd like 25 please. Maximum number was 19 (19??), so Sir had better do it in two separate transactions. Guess whether or not it would accept my £10 note? Guess how many times it rejected the ten £1 coins I substituted? I am going to tell you that it took about 15 seconds to print each one so it was ME who was the new idiot hogging the machine for twenty minutes. And all this time the PO employee was so infuriatingly polite and helpful that there was no reasonable way I could get angry despite my best efforts and in ideal circumstances too. He even assisted in applying the labels so by the time the ordeal was over we were firm friends. 

To the recipients, I can only apologise for the industrial-look Christmas cards. If it's any consolation I can tell you that I missed my train."

 “Things are never so bad they can’t be made worse” Humphrey Bogart

UK employment statistics for August to October 2011 were released this morning and they make pretty glum reading. 

- The employment rate for those aged from 16 to 64 was 70.3 per cent, down 0.2 on the quarter

- There were 29.11 million people in employment aged 16 and over, down 63,000 on the quarter. The number of people employed in the public sector fell by 67,000 on the quarter to reach 5.99million. The number of people employed in the private sector rose by 5,000 on the quarter to reach 23.12 million.

- The unemployment rate was 8.3 per cent of the economically active population, up 0.4 on the quarter. There were 2.64 million unemployed people, up 128,000 on the quarter. The unemployment rate is the highest since 1996 and the number of unemployed people is the highest since 1994.

- The inactivity rate for those aged from 16 to 64 was 23.2 per cent, down 0.1 on the quarter. There were 9.33 million economically inactive people aged from 16 to 64, down 54,000 on the quarter.

- Total pay (including bonuses) rose by 2.0 per cent on a year earlier, down 0.3 on the three months to September 2011(with both the private and public sectors showing lower pay growth).

- Regular pay (excluding bonuses) rose by 1.8 per cent on a year earlier, up 0.1 on the three months to September 2011.

This though, is the stand out chart in the ONS release

Nigel goes into bat for us again in Brussels, telling it as it is.

Nick Clegg's Political Career Takes An Unexpected Turn

After a weekend of bluster Nick Clegg has failed to appear in the House of Commons this afternoon for the Prime Ministers statement on on the EU treaty. Aides say he didn't want to be a distraction. Poor lamb.

Like it or not Clegg is part of the government and should be there; the deputy prime minister can't cherry pick only the fluffy warm user-friendly announcements that he wants to be associated with. In fact, Clegg has done himself enormous damage this weekend. Flip flopping between different views doesn't sit well with voters who, like and agree with them or not, prefer men of conviction and loyalty. Clegg meanwhile is displaying all the characteristics of a political and moral coward and in effect is ensuring his own political end.

What he may have failed to appreciate is that if Cameron had gone along with the treaty, the subsequent referendum would have kicked the EU firmly into touch in the UK and the subsequent and inevitable general election would have signed off himself and the rest of his lie-down-and-cry party into deep oblivion for a generation. Cameron's act of defiance therefore was in fact in the Liberal's best political interests.

It is anyway a common talking point amongst Liberals that Clegg will get the heave at the next general election from the good people of Sheffield. He may find that the EU commissioner job he was pencilled in for is off the scorecard now and so should it be. 

The best thing that Clegg can do is to man up and stand firm for the government and for Britain. If it alienates his party members then so be it. His only alternative is immediate resignation. Any compromise between the two will leave his reputation and future in tatters and regardless of what some of his more naive colleagues and flapping BBC journo's may think, the same will be true of his party's electoral prospects.

I'm afraid we must roll back the pages of history to explain where we are and how we got here but don't worry; it won't take very long. We're travelling back all the way to the 24th March 1980 and deep into the golden age of British televison comedy to Episode 5 of "Yes Minister," entitled "The Writing on the Wall." (hat tip to Mish for the reminder).

Sir Humphrey: Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last five hundred years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now, when it's worked so well?

Hacker: That's all ancient history, surely?

Sir Humphrey: Yes, and current policy. We had to break the whole thing [the EEC] up, so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside, but that wouldn't work. Now that we're inside we can make a complete pig's breakfast of the whole thing: set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch. The Foreign Office is terribly pleased; it's just like old times.

Hacker: But surely we're all committed to the European ideal? 
Sir Humphrey: [chuckles] Really, Minister. 

Hacker: If not, why are we pushing for an increase in the membership?
Sir Humphrey: Well, for the same reason. It's just like the United Nations, in fact; the more members it has, the more arguments it can stir up, the more futile and impotent it becomes.

Hacker: What appalling cynicism.
Sir Humphrey: Yes... We call it diplomacy, Minister.