England hurting

The US isn't the only country having difficult economic times.

Here's a piece on Great Britain mightily struggling; unless you're a government worker.

The service sector and the south of England, which have survived previous downturns relatively unscathed, will suffer serious collateral damage. What remains of manufacturing industry will go into meltdown.

But there's one lucky group of people who have no such worries about losing their livelihood, their pension or the roof over their head.

Yes, Britain's five-a- day coordinators, diversity managers, equality officers, elf 'n'safety enforcers and carbon-footprint campaigners can all sleep easily in their beds.

While private companies are either contracting or going to the wall, the public sector continues to party like it's 1999. There'll be no shake-out in the Town Halls, no Christmas parties cancelled in Whitehall. We won't be seeing sobbing civil servants standing outside government office blocks with their personal effects in a cardboard box and a P45 in their back pocket.

Far from it. While the productive sector of the economy disappears down the plughole, taking with it millions of jobs, the public sector is still hiring merrily as if the nearcollapse of the global banking system never happened.

Sounds like California

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