Title? What title?

I managed to waste an hour this morning by going down to Lions Dene where I was due to meet somebody to get a quote for the installation of a hearing loop. Twenty minutes after the appointed time, I rang Pat, our secretary/manager, at Lions Gate to see if he had gone there by mistake, but he hadn't. Pat rang the company only to be told that the meeting had been rescheduled for tomorrow. Not by me, it hadn't - I know I can't manage tomorrow. The company is supposed to be calling me to rearrange.

Yesterday afternoon, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alastair Darling, presented his Pre-Budget Report to the House of Commons. Somehow, over the last few years, this seems to have become a mini-Budget in addition to the Budget traditionally presented in March. Anyway, the main priority at the moment is to tackle the recession in which the UK, along with pretty much the rest of the developed world, is suffering. Perhaps the main headline grabber is the reduction in Value Added Tax from 17.5% to 15%, which we are told will cost the Government £20 million during the thirteen months that this reduction will last. It seems that the idea is to stimulate consumer spending in the High Street. I remain sceptical. An item which has cost £117.50, ie £100 plus VAT, will now cost £115. I really can't see that a reduction of that much will encourage more people to buy. In any case, I thought (in my naivety) that the underlying cause of the recession was (a) people borrowing too much, and (b) spending what they had borrowed and couldn't afford to repay. This smacks to me of pouring oil on a fire in the hope of putting it out – but then, I'm not an economist. Another measure is to bring forward Government funded capital projects such as road building and the cross-London rail link. The cynic in me wonders how much of that money will end up going outside the British economy since I expect the companies which get the contracts will be French or German, and the majority of the workers will be eastern Europeans scrimping and saving to send the bulk of their wages back to Hungary or Romania. Perhaps it's just as well that I'm not Chancellor.