Something other than recession?
From gloomy New York yesterday to gloomy London today, the talk on both sides of the Atlantic is equally grim, with job losses, recession and the fallout from the banking crisis still on most folks' minds.
Back in Britain attention is focussing on government efforts to borrow its way out of recession, with Gordon Brown saying it is in a downturn, Chancellor Darling about to junk the long-standing Brown rules on borrowing to fund the spending spree -- and more of the same to form the centrepiece of next month's pre-Budget Report.
Two matters remain unclear in all this: with borrowing already set to soar above £60 billion this financial year and perhaps pass £100 billion in the next one (2009/10), is their scope to borrow much more to finance Keynesian-style pump-priming? And even if we could afford it, just how effective would it be (historians will tell you it didn't do that much for the US economy under FDR in the Thirties and produced disappointing results in Japan in the Nineties)?
There's a feeling in Westminster that the government would like us to talk about something other than recession. Last week we had Phil Woolas, the new immigration minister, talking toughly about stricter controls (though on closer examination it's not clear what he was saying). Now the Government announces changes to the way it deals with so-called from abroad who want to come to the UK.
In future radical clerics who are banned from visiting Britain could be named. The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Office says the changes will toughen up existing measures to keep extremists away from the country, but this morning the plan has come under fire, with critics arguing it's just a gimmick. We'll look at what's being said in detail.
Also today, MPs wade into the made by ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ presenters Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand 
on their Radio 2 programme - with some calling for the pair to be sacked. We look at the increasing . And sketchwriter Simon Hoggart on how to recover from a political blunder.
All that on the Daily Politics on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ2 from Noon today.
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