2012: a year to remember

This promises to be a financially painful year for many of us, as unemployment rises and tax increases bite. Though these will not worry me if deathclock.com is correct in its prediction that I will die on 4 February. Irritatingly, it does not specify at what time.

If it proves to be wrong (and the same website did advise my older brother that he had already been dead for a decade) I look forward to the birth of my second son later in February, and to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in June. Creating a welcome boom for Chinese producers of bunting and commemorative plates.

Which brings me to an uncharacteristically serious point. We do not have to accept the inevitability of globalisation exporting our jobs. We could all do more to buy locally made and grown stuff from local retailers, and to tighten our focus on buying only what we actually need.

The ‘savings’ made by cashing in on special offers at distant hypermarkets are every bit as illusory as the claims of constantly improving academic attainment, risk-free defence cuts or the affordability of free health care from the cradle to the grave when these are now around a century apart. Though maybe not for me ...

Keith Hann is a financial PR from Northumberland, a regular Journal columnist and a born optimist: www.keithhann.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

2010: the dawn of reality

So far we have faced up to our appalling financial crisis like those cartoon characters that keep running long after they have passed over the edge of the cliff. But soon grim reality must surely dawn, and we will all plummet downwards amid a resounding crash of tax rises and spending cuts.

Before that we are doomed to months of relentless point-scoring in the run-up to the General Election, as each party seeks to demonstrate that things would be even worse under the other lot. Then, whoever wins, we will face the shock revelation that things are far worse than expected, and that drastic emergency action must be taken.

For this reason, the General Election of 2010 will surely be like that of 1992; one not to win. Our electoral system almost guarantees that the winning party will have been backed by only a minority of the electorate, so at least most of us will be able to derive some grim satisfaction from watching the new Government rapidly sink to record depths of unpopularity. Personally I would like nothing more than to consign him to the book of Great British Failures; but, for poetic justice, surely that poisoned chalice has got to be Gordon’s?

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.