I read on Bloomberg earlier that the rate of increase in unemployment in the UK last month increased at it’s fastest rate since 1992 when Britain was in the depths of it’s last major recession.

That’s not to say that the total number unemployed is as bad (yet). The number current stands at 1.68 million unemployed (but obviously increasing fast) representing 5.2% of the potential workforce.

The latest job casualties appear to be with construction and developers who had previously been working to fill the UK property asset bubble with high density housing which is now proving almost unsalable. While some may indulge in scadenfreud over this, it’s worth remembering that there are large numbers hard working labourers being put out of work who may be difficult, if not impossible to retask.

The ONS reports that the CPI figure for UK inflation has jumped from 3.3% to 3.8% between May and June this year.

The is despite a slowing economy with much of the inflation being caused by the cost of hydrocarbon fuels and food. The Bank of England who’s remit it is to control inflation by setting the base interest rate seem to now be taking the position that there is ‘nothing they can do’.

Of course, if the BoE were actually doing what they profess to do and looking ‘two years ahead’ two years ago, they would have set interest rates to prevent the economy becoming overheated and we may be in less of a mess now. Unfortunately, the BoE’s own forecasts have been off-low in the past and this doesn’t fill one with a great deal of confidence.

I’d suggest that seeing as we have to buy fuels in other currencies, the correct way to reduce the cost of purchasing fuel would be to increase the BoE baserate which would have the effect of bolstering sterling. An increase in interest rates would likely have little effect on borrowing in the UK as the banks have long since detached themselves from the unrealistic baserate for private lending.

I’m still of the opinion that the long-term outside maximum projection for UK CPI inflation by the Bank of England could well be lower than the coming reality.

The UK government seems to have decided that an expansion of use of biofuels for road transport is possibly not the best idea ever.

In a sudden outbreak of common sense, they have acknowledged that diverting crops from food production to biofuel production may in fact drive up the price of food. They are debate whether to abandon the EUs target of 10% biofuel usage by 2020, a target which I believe the EU government themselves are thinking of scrapping.

Ruth Kelly for the government made some points about rainforest deforestation and suggested a softly-softy approach

“To tackle climate change we will need to develop new, cleaner fuels - but that doesn’t mean pushing forward indiscriminately on biofuels that may do more harm than good.”

Which was rather contrary to previous policy which seemed to be pushing biofuels as a general panacea and solution to the fuel crisis.

The reality is that as such epic quantities of land have to be diverted to biofuel production to have any meaningful effect, the price of food is inevitably driven up making poor people poorer (or just plain starving them).

My personal view toward a solution is to change the energy storage medium for all short-range vehicles to battery-electric combined with a clear nuclear-power generation strategy. Then the inevitably higher-priced hydrocarbon fuels can be dedicated to longer-range transportion where the energy density afforded will still be neccesary. This could perhaps include high-capacity PHEVs.

Unfortunately, vehicle manufacturers are still faffing about with hydrogen fuel cell designs for which there is no present-day infrastructure and arguably require far more energy in their operation cycle than battery electric systems anyway.

Retired French aircraft carrier Clemenceau (R98) is to be broken up at Graythorp in Hartlepool. Clemenceau was originally sent to India for dismantling in 2005 but due to the large amounts of toxic chemicals and materials on board, was denied access.

In 2006, Clemenceau returned to French waters and was anchored off Brest. Able UK have now secured dispensation to handle the 700 tons of asbestos and will be carrying out the contract to scrap the vessel.

About the Clemenceau

“le Clem” was laid-down in 1955 and launched in 1957, with 32,700 tons displacement and angle-deck CATOBAR configuration, she could carry up to 40 aircraft including the possibility of nuclear-armed Super Etendards. In the 1990s Clemenceau supported sorties over the former Yugoslavia. There was a second ship of Clemenceau’s class named ‘Foch’ (R99) which continues to serve to this day in the Brazillian Navy as Sao Paulo.

Clemenceau is expected in Hartlepool for dismantling in the late summer.

Parked-up trucks are lining the inside lane of the A40 into London today for yet another protest against the price of fuel in the UK. Another group is reportedly setting off for London from the Medway services on the M2.

Some trucks are to be escorted into the city to protest and others are going to go to Whitehall on foot to demand a 25p/litre rebate from the government for hauliers.

According to The Press Association, the Road Haulage Association will be taking part in fuel protests today.

Diesel is now, on average, about £1.32 a litre at the pump, one of the highest prices for fuel in the World. The RHA notes that even when bought in bulk, diesel is little cheaper for hauliers. The average HGV in the UK is said to cost over £1,000 a week in fuel to operate.

Like many people, I like to go out for ‘one or two’ beers at the weekend. Only this is Britain, 2008, so ‘one or two’ beers quickly becomes ‘a few more’ beers and quite often turns into ’so many beers you can’t remember how many’ by the end of the night.

…how did I get home again?

Yes, Britain definitely seems to have a drinking problem, we do it too often, too much and often inappropriately. I’m thankful that I seem to retain the self restraint that keeps me away from the vomiting and violence seen on the old-media news but I’m still none too proud of being part of a such a stigmatised culture.

But I digress, what I really meant to say is that I’ve come to have the opinion that drinking (as the British drink) seriously impacts on productivity. Just using my blog writing as a non empirical metric, I can see that I become almost incable of getting a decent article off no just the following day but possibly for several days after ‘binge drinking’*.

I’m pretty much a wimp now when it comes to dealing with the morning-after hangovers so I do tend to stop drinking long before my friends and associates who seem to drink like there will be no tomorrow, consuming herculean ammounts, mixing their drinks and generally doing all the things your mother told you not to. With my own follow-on alcohol come-down / general malaise post binge, I can’t fathom how some of my own friends can complete a days work the following day. I’d cringe at the thought of my employees turning up to work in such a mental state, imagining all the business disasters that could befall a company staffed by people who are not firing on all cylinders.

So how would I stop this culture? Well, step one would be to avoid the methods the government employs as they clearly don’t work. The extra taxation only serves to make the population resentful. You could tax the British more and more and they’d probably just spend a larger proportion of their income on booze. You also can’t get anywhere stigmatising the general culture as the people seem to have lost their self-esteem. Britain hardly appears ‘Great’ these days on the world stage, everything that made the nation proud seems to have been taken from us.

I think the solution is, in fact, lying with the self esteem issue. Britain needs to be doing something worthwhile. The ’sevice economy’ is clearly a bad idea, in fact it appears to be going down the pan as we speak. We need some serious industry; major stuff. Right now, for example, there is a manufacturer in Germany about to start producing cars that will travel 150 miles on a gallon of fuel. We should be making a car that will go 200 miles on a gallon and cornering the world market!

I’d hope that seeing such results from British ingenuity and labor would get the British into an upward spiral of drinking less and doing more. In effect, just giving the British something really worthwile to live for. I can but dream.

*In the UK, ‘Binge Drinking’ is generally defined as drinking half of the weekly recommended allowance in one sitting ie: 11+ units for men or 9+ units for women on one occasion