Things You Pass Along the Way: Leona, Heathrow and the Looming Recession

A couple of things have grabbed my attention this week. Heathrow, Leona Lewis and recession.

Firstly, what a bloody mess at heathrow this week. What on earth is that all about. We built terminal 5 to be at the forefront of European and international Trade and Commerce. It has been an unmittigated flop, it all opened and then fell over, right the way to the floor and took as many people with it as it could. Truth is, it'll be ok in the long run after they have sorted its ginormous teething problems and the truth is that someone should probably resign over the fiasco but nobody important will. The point is however that we are probably now the laughing stock of European and international trade and commerce. This wouldn't have happened in Germany or even Shanghai, now would it?

Poor old Leona Lewis can't afford to find a house to buy in London. The X Factor winner has just had to pull out of a five hundred thousand pound property because the owner put the price up as soon as it was revealed who the buyer was (fair move methinks). Now assuming the amounts in the original story are correct, and asuming that under the current economic climate she would be buying her property with a mortgage at maybe three and a half times her anual salary, this would mean that she would need to be earning somewhere in the region of one hundred and forty two thousand a year. Now the article said that poor Leona was only earning enough to survive...."to survive". Now this is where I start to scratch my head because the sums just don't add up for me. If she is earning just under 150k a year, then this is a lot more than the average person in London earns and therefore a lot more than is needed to survive. The minimum wage which is what the government tells employers they need to pay 22 year olds plus is just five pounds and fifty two pence an hour. So if she is working 9 hour days five days a week 52 weeks in the year, a person on minimum wage will earn nearly thirteen grand a year and be expected to survive on that. So either we are expected to feel sorry for Leona who is earning 11 times the basic minimum wage or if my calculations are incorrect and she isn't earning 150k a year, but only enough to survive (13k)......then it looks like the recession is over because she's found a mortgage lender who's willing to lend her 38 times her salary to buy a house worth 500k. Now if that's not confidence in the economy then I don't know what is.

If the recession is over, then someone should tell the government because they are looking grimmer and grimmer by the day. Great long term planning Gordon by the way...congratulations. In fact good job you got rid of Tony before you admitted that there was trouble ahead. Thing is, we all saw this coming, we all saw it coming a while back, but did we do anything about it? No we sat there and let it happen. The reason? We didn't like the other guy when it came to previous elections. Now we are in trouble and the other guy is beginning to look quite good, whoever he is. Either we as an electorate need to wake up and hold politicians more accountable, the only way we can, through elections or politicians need to start being more honest and open about what is going on in the country and around the world........Yeah right!!!