´óÏó´«Ã½

Forgive me if I'm sounding confused, but the more I struggle to get my head around the measures being proposed to handle recession, it's hard not to feel that way.

Unless I'm mistaken, the UK Government is proposing that:

- Because we have been spending beyond our means - and some - the solution is to do everything to ensure we spend lots more, and quickly. It's our patriotic duty.

- Having got into trouble by maxing out our credit cards, this is the time to get tough with credit card companies, telling them they should make it cheaper for us to keep spending.

- One of the key weaknesses in the British economy is the low level of saving, so this week's tax cuts are devised to minimise the amount that goes into saving.

- The banks have over-extended themselves massively, much of this with over-risky lending, so the solution to the crisis they brought about is to exhort or force them to keep lending at last year's levels.

- While banks are told by one arm of government to get lending, another arm of government is requiring higher capital requirements, meaning they have to be more conservative in their gearing of loans.

- Part of the problem has been over-priced property, with people struggling to get on the bottom of the buying ladder, so the answer is to prop up that market.

- If these current plans don't do the trick, the likely next stage will be something called quantitative easing. The idea is that central banks wade into the markets once more to buy up all the debt they have just put out there, and lots more besides.

That should increase reserves to boost liquidity and ought to increase confidence in banks' ability to lend.

It also happens to have an effect very similar to printing money. And that leads to inflation, though the preferred outcome would be an absence of deflation.

Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, we're being told by the Government. They're not kidding.

And, of course, a sign of these measures' success will be when all of the above gets thrown into reverse.

Confusing? I've got a hunch that we ain't seen nothing yet.

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• - What's this?

At Westminster, the government's fiscal boost has opened up a new fault line between Labour and Tory over the best level of taxation, spending and borrowing.

At Holyrood, reaction to it has been very different. Finance Secretary John Swinney quickly alighted on the impact for public spending. The package throws a big wad of tax cuts at the next 16 months, plus £3bn of capital spending brought forward to next fiscal year.

With optimistic assumptions about a return to growth in 2010, payback time starts very quickly after. With £5bn being taken out of previous spending plans UK-wide the year after next, the SNP minister said the consequent population share of up to £500m would be a "crude cut" .

The number affecting Holyrood's budget is imprecise because it depends where the efficiency drive, as the cuts are to be known, fall across Whitehall departments.

More of a cut on welfare and defence, and Holyrood comes off relatively lightly. If English health, education and justice take the brunt in Whitehall, that would hurt the block grant heading north. Those decisions are some way off.

Note some significant effects of this. If both Whitehall and St Andrew's House bring forward capital spending from 2010-11 to 2009-2010, that leaves much less for 2010-11 within the constraints of the three-year spending period, of which we're now in Year 1.

Second, the pain hits in the year preceding the next Holyrood election - the very time when finance ministers of every political like to splash some cash.

And don't forget that Year 3 of the spending round was already looking very tight, before most of us had heard of the credit crunch.

Consider also why this isn't such a big issue at Westminster. Is it just that MSPs only think about spending rather than tax and borrowing? That Scotland's public sector dominates? Or could it be that MPs don't believe the 2010 upturn forecast, reckoning that the chancellor will be back with more emergency measures before too long, while tearing even more holes in last year's three-year plans?

And what are the implications of this? Well, it looks like the whole debate about public spending in Scotland is going to shift from choosing what to do with the extra cash to what we can least (and most) afford to do without. The politics of choices becomes much tougher in that uncharted territory for devolution.

A flavour of that debate has already been offered by Tory leader David Cameron this week, suggesting there should be an end to the "apartheid" between public and private sector occupational pensions. It doesn't take much interpretion to see where he's heading with that suggestion.

The closing down of final salary, defined benefit pensions across the public sector over this decade has left this as the biggest imbalance between public and private, contributing to business disadvantage in competing for skilled workers while it complains of having to foot the bill to let it continue.

Demographics don't look too good for sustaining relatively generous benefits in lengthening old age.

And a severe downturn offers the Treasury an opportunity to get concessions out of public sector workers and their unions, when people are grateful just to have job security.

The chancellor, Alistair Darling, told ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Scotland this week that he had no plans to use his efficiency drive to tackle public sector staff pensions, which is a long way from saying he won't do it.

So if this is a looming issue at Westminster, how will it be handled at Holyrood? Is anyone willing to grasp this thistle? And if not pensions, where else to wield the knife?

Let's hear from Annabel Goldie, for instance - does she agree with her UK leader in wanting to end pensions "apartheid"?

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• - What's this?

The 'arc of prosperity' argument is alive and well if you say it in Kalaallisut, soon to be established as the official language of Greenland.

Last year, Alex Salmond argued, very successfully, that Scotland could be like those other vibrant, dynamic, flexible wee countries arcing around our coast; Ireland, Norway and Iceland. That doesn't look quite so persuasive these days.

But using the Obama/Salmond slogan of "yes we can", it has proven persuasive to the 57,000 or so people of Greenland, who voted this week for Nuuk, their capital, to have more autonomy from Denmark.

The particularly persuasive bit of it is that Greenland's oil and other mineral extraction potential now seems to be improving.

Without that, the 94% of its export earnings derived from fish has left it heavily dependent on subsidy from Copenhagen.

Global warming and some ice melt could help access inhospitable areas of the world's largest island - eight times the size of Britain - and Edinburgh-based Cairn Energy is to the fore in taking the new frontiers of offshore drilling and applying it to the ferociously stormy waters off the Greenland coast.

The company's new business director Mike Watts was in Nuuk this week signing off a deal on two giant exploration blocks.

That's Greenlands plan anyway. The oil price is bound to have oil companies thinking twice about risky investments until it stabilises.

But just as Greenland wants more autonomy, two neighbours are looking for more protection.

Reports from Iceland say it is extremely keen to get into the European Union to help provide some protection from its dire economic state.

The negotiations about its role within the Common Fisheries Policy would be fraught.

And Denmark, which controlled both these territories for centuries, is having second thoughts about its previous rejection of the euro.

So small countries need protection from larger countries or combinations of countries.

Applied in Scotland, that could cut two ways - the nationalist argument is that an independent Scotland could take cover under the protection of the eurozone, while unionists argue the current crisis shows the need to stick with larger and closer unions as a national insurance policy.

The same Danish debate applied in Britain also raises the question of whether it should think again about joining the euro.

European chiefs have been rather pleased with themselves at how well their currency has survived recent events, as a rare safe haven for investors.

If the UK's recession is substantially worse than the rest of the eurozone - and it could well be - there is a risk of the pound dipping below the value of the euro.

Currencies should not be virility symbols. They are merely a mechanism for pricing, and weak sterling has positive benefits for helping Britain grow out of recession.

But in Britain, sterling has been a virility symbol. And at what value could it become more attractive to give it up?

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• - What's this?

We can all make mistakes, but it seems Alistair Darling has already had two embarrassing ones in the volumes of pre-Budget report documentation.

How many more to follow?

There was the 18.5% VAT tax rate scheduled to be introduced in 2010-11, but which should - we are told - not have been printed, as the idea was considered and then discarded.

And now it is clear the whisky duty is set for a speedy U-turn. The idea was to cut VAT from 17.5% to 15% from next week until the end of next year.

For alcohol - as with petrol and tobacco - duty is to be increased equal to the cut. Hence, a neutral effect, but no word on whether the duty comes down again after 13 months.

The actual impact on Scotch was not what we were told was the intention. Down came the VAT, but the duty went up, by a net 29p per bottle.

And with very little revenue benefit, Chancellor Alistair Darling has realised there is far too much political pain in this.

The whisky lobby is a formidable one, and Labour's opponents are quick to back it.

So we're learning tonight we can expect an imminent revision to the statutory provisions behind next week's VAT changes which are being sped through parliament this week.

The uncharitable (and I know you're out there) might think this was the Chancellor imposing a wee stealth tax on Scotch and hoping no-one noticed.

My guess (being reasonably charitable) is that, in constructing a £20bn package to counter-attack the recession, while plunging us all into unimaginably large debt, his eye may have been off the Scotch whisky ball.

The Treasury seems to have taken the average strength of a measure of spirits across off-sales and on-sales, and come up with its increase per bottle.

But as Scotch is slightly stronger than other spirits, at 40% proof, and heavily weighted towards off-sales, those two elements conspired through Treasury calculations to hit the whisky industry hardest.

Privately, meanwhile, there are government grumbles that the help to whisky exports from the recent weakening of sterling, particularly against the US dollar, should be far more use to it than minor adjustments on tax in Britain.

In researching the story earlier today, I have found out Some Interesting Facts. For instance, exports account for 90% of whisky production - up in value but down in volume terms over the first nine months of the year.

In Britain, around 80% of sales are in-off sales and 80% of sales are of blended whisky instead of single malts.

And in the final eight weeks of the year in Britain, 30% of blended whisky off-sales take place and 40% of single malts, which helps explain why there is such sensitivity on the duty hike.

For anyone wondering about my Christmas, it's single malt for me - but not much. I'm mildly allergic to the stuff. An Interesting Fact you could possibly live without.

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• - What's this?

The rate of VAT is to go up to 18.5% in 2011-12, according to the Treasury.

That's on top of the return to 17.5% already announced, and means roughly £5bn extra on Britain's shopping bill, as part of the payback budget that will wallop us once the anti-recession splurge is over.

The news is contained in Treasury documents which were intended to provide an explanation of the pre-Budget report published yesterday by Chancellor Alistair Darling.

"The proposed changes will reduce this (VAT) to 15% from 1 December 2008 until the end of 2009," it says, just as the Chancellor announced.

But then: "The standard rate will then return to 17.5% from 1 January 2010 and subsequently increase to 18.5% in 2011-12."

The catch is ... it's wrong.

HM Treasury didn't mean what it published. We're now told that mandarins had been considering what might happen if VAT went up to 18.5% and forgot to delete it before heading for the printers.

The document goes on to give the Treasury's estimate of how much it will cost business to implement the cut that definitely is going ahead, followed by the return to 17.5% at the end of next year.

It goes like this: the time businesses will take to familiarise themselves, of between 30 minutes and three hours, will cost them more than £24m this year and another £16m next year.

The cost of implementing the cuts and subsequent rise is a bit more costly for those who sell to the public with VAT included in their prices, as it includes changes to barcode and relabeling.

Restaurants might have to reprint menus, for instance.

That should cost up to £600 for big businesses, with a total for British business of around £50m this year and £45m next year.

Extra accountancy costs could top £50m over the two changes.

The biggest part of the bill is in accounting software changes.

With a simple accounting system, that could cost you a tenner, but the more complex variety may require £500 of patches and fiddling with the IT, with a bill to business of £70m this year and £45m next year.

With a modest bit of rounding up and down, the total cost hits £300m.

If the Treasury changes its mind on that 18.5% idea - deciding it may have been necessary after all - at least businesses will be better prepared, and the changes should be cheaper next time.

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• - What's this?

Well, the Stock Market likes what Alistair Darling had to say this afternoon - so far.

So might small and medium-sized businesses.

The reckoning is that there's £7bn of support coming their way, out of this £20bn fiscal package.

There's a new loan fund, loan guarantee extensions, delays in tax bills for those in cash flow trouble, and more flexibility in writing off losses against tax.

But note how little of this package is in new spending.

It's very heavily loaded towards tax cuts, and the change in the UK Government's spending plan is almost entirely to bring spending forward from 2010-11 to next year.

The Scottish Government had already planned something similar for housing.

That means very little to boost Holyrood spending plans - just a few million pounds might come north to help with home insulation.

That isn't much of an answer to Alex Salmond's claim that the Scottish Government should get nearly £1bn in grant for extra spending to help the economy.

On the contrary, there is a squeeze on the public sector, with more efficiency expected particularly when the bills have to be paid in future years.

The argument is that government has to share some of the pain.

And in the Scottish public sector, that could mean the current 2% per year efficiency requirement could be pushed up to 3%, when it is already causing squeals of pain from councils and health boards.

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• - What's this?

Alistair Darling is delivering .

This is not just any . This isn't even any old Budget day.

This is more of a battle plan as Britain moves onto an economic war footing.

The idea is that we are supposed to do our patriotic duty by going out and spending lots in the shops.

Let's gloss over the fact that we have been doing that rather too enthusiastically for rather too long.

Saving for your retirement, or even a rainy day? Forget it.

This IS a rainy day unlike any other. It's not just drizzle we're talking, but a major storm brewing off the British coast.

One of the risks of a big fiscal stimulus is that people take their tax cuts and extra spending power and spend that on sucking in imports.

That can as easily mean a foreign holiday as an imported laptop, car or a whole lot of Chinese-made toys for the kids' Christmas.

And money spent on imports is money lost to the British economy, so the multiplier effect of that cash swirling round the economy goes to help some other country.

That is why Gordon Brown was careful to give himself political cover for his fiscal stimulus, with the Washington summit agreement for other countries to do likewise.

As well as Alistair Darling's statement, we're finding out today about the possible scale of the American boost - 700 billion dollar seems the same nice, round figure used for the buy-out of toxic debt approved by Congress in early October.

The idea is to get everyone boosting their economies at roughly the same rate, so that leakage to imports is minimised, or at least so that we gain from others' spending programmes through our exports.

That's where Jim McColl comes in, as boss of Clyde Blowers.

Just before he headed off to the US and South Africa last week, to work on integrating new subsidiaries of his Scottish-based company, he was announcing a giant new order from China, to supply pumps for several new nuclear power stations.

The Beijing Government is going for a humungous fiscal stimulus of 4 trillian yuan, which converts at roughly £400 billion.

And by bringing forward its vast programme in building energy plants, that means good news for those with the technology at Weir Pumps' Cathcart works, in Glasgow.

Parent company Clyde Blowers, says Jim McColl, is now positioned as the world's biggest provider of pumps to the nuclear power industry.

McColl remains assertively upbeat about prospects, which puts him in a very small minority these days.

His advice to others in Scottish business: stop looking at your shoes, look up and for new opportunities.

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• - What's this?

Having started this blog by warning of the threat of falling circulation among Scotland's newspapers, I hadn't expected the crisis would descend quite so fast. But Johnston Press - owners of The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday - has seen its share price falling through the floor this week.

Eighteen months ago, the Edinburgh-based company's share price was touching 500p. A year ago, it had sunk to 215p. It is trading today below 7p. So the Edinburgh stable of prestigious titles, along with more than 300 local and regional papers and more than 300 websites, employing 2500 journalists and 5500 others, could be yours for under £50m.

If it keeps going this way, you could pick up the company quite cheaply as a Christmas present for a friend - or better still for an enemy, as it would involve saddling them with huge debts. It is one media industry analysts' view that Johnston Press risks failing to meet its banking covenants that has pushed the share price so low this week, with investors watching warily as advertising revenues fall steeply.

If this crisis for Johnston Press continues, it could find itself being broken up. And while there is a shortage of buyers for newspaper titles these days, that opens up the renewed prospect of The Scotsman being bought by one of its rivals, three years after Johnston bought it from the Barclay brothers. The Glasgow-based Herald, for instance, is watching closely and could be interested in the savings from combining the two operations in one head office while keeping the mastheads separate.

DC Thomson, owner of the Courier and Sunday Post, bought the Press and Journal and makes such a system work. The Dundee family firm could be another option for The Scotsman, if it is interested in expanding its empire down the east coast.

Or there's the Malaysian investor Ananda Krishnan who helped out Johnston Press earlier this year by taking a 20% stake. Asian newspaper markets have been growing strongly, while they fall in Europe and the States, so perhaps he reckons he has what it takes to turn around The Scotsman's waning fortunes.

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Like politicians facing the electorate, the masters of the financial universe find exposure to their shareholders can be a humbling experience - as if things had not been humbling enough for the past couple of months.

TV cameras were not allowed in the cavernous Glasgow conference hall where .

That was as well for chairman Sir Victor Blank.

His patience lasted 90 minutes or so, and then began to get.

He will have felt he had earned his late lunch, after being whisked from a bank door, dodging the waiting media.

Sir Victor had suffered several barbs about the one-third boost to the directors' pay budget, but most of the attacks were on HBOS for being "terminally diseased" and "a very large failed bank".

Lloyds TSB directors were ridiculed with the words of economist JK Galbraith when he said of bankers in 1929 that they had succeeded on a large scale, but only in swindling themselves.

The most telling question was a plea to reconcile the two contradictory stories being told by Sir Victor: that Lloyds TSB is so strong that it can take over the weak HBOS, while Lloyds TSB is so weak that it needs £5.5bn of government support, and that it would require more were it not for joining forces with HBOS.

Amid strong doubts about the government's intentions over the deal, one gent said the bailout deal was like having his house robbed by people who can then dictate the law on house-breaking.

This, it was suggested, was a deal "cooked up at a cocktail party with a Prime Minister willing to ride roughshod over a law designed to protect the public interest".

To applause, it was claimed: "most of us think this deal stinks".

Sir Victor wasn't so much feeling the shareholders pain as, in his own words, "sharing some of your despair" about the share price.

He explained that Lloyds TSB had decided two years ago to go on the acquisition trail.

From adversity, sometimes opportunity arises, and here was a chance to make a big bit of banking history.

Yes, the Bank of Scotland brand would be retained, along with TSB, Scottish Widows and, of course, Lloyds.

There would be inevitable job losses, but this would be handled with respect and dignity, and there is to be a review of outsourcing and offshoring.

From chief executive Eric Daniels came reassurances that the lessons of past acquisitions were being learned, and that it was probable no takeover had had so much research into the risks involved.

Five thousand staff days have been dedicated to pouring over HBOS books, it was stressed.

This figure was supposed to impress the shareholders. But they looked unconvinced as they left, satisfied only that they had made Sir Victor squirm for a couple of hours.

More than 90% of the proceedings had been hostile to the takeover of HBOS and the conditions attached to the government investment.

The vote, however, went in precisely the opposite direction, with big institutional investors giving the plans a 96% vote of confidence.

The takeover, and the creation of a high street banking giant, are very much on track.

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• - What's this?

The pace is picking up on the banking bailout, as Lloyds TSB management and shareholders come to the north bank of the Clyde on Wednesday, to decide whether to take on £5.5bn of government capital injection.

The Royal Bank of Scotland meets on the Mound in Edinburgh this Thursday (in the Church of Scotland's Assembly Hall, of all places) to vote on the plan for £20bn of bailout cash.

The crunch vote for Halifax Bank of Scotland comes on 12 December, when it faces the toughest criticism from shareholders - not only for getting itself into its current mess, and the need for £11.5bn in taxpayer bailout, but also over the deal it struck to merge with (or, to be realistic, be taken over by) Lloyds TSB.

In his ´óÏó´«Ã½ business blog, Robert Peston explains that Chancellor Alistair Darling has placed a very large warning sign over the idea of an alternative plan.

As Robert puts it, it is a "swingeing kick" to Sir George Mathewson and Sir Peter Burt, the knights attempting to ride to the rescue of HBOS as an independent bank based in Edinburgh.

The momentum of their initiative has lost ground since its launch 10 days ago, and this latest development carries the risk of stalling it altogether.

The Chancellor's statement reads as if it's been written to do so, showing he is keen to put banking stability above all other priorities.

But it has raised questions over whether HBOS shareholders are getting the best possible deal in the new Lloyds Banking Group's shares.

Their case is that HBOS could survive on its own if it had the same access to government capital.

But looked at another way, the banker knights have basically argued: if you think HBOS is bad, Lloyds TSB looks worse off, being proportionately more dependent on government bailout.

That has been described as "reckless", and it's firmly denied by Lloyds TSB.

The Burt-Mathewson figures are seen by critics as selectively looking at shorter-term debt, whereas HBOS's exposure is much higher over the longer term due to the dominance of its mortgage products.

But the accusations may add some spice to the Lloyds TSB shareholder meeting in Glasgow.

One might ask, for instance, why the current management are remaining in place, while other bank chiefs that required bailouts have had to stand down.

Perhaps it is because chairman Sir Victor Blank has such a strong story to tell about the HBOS takeover.

Only in crisis circumstances could he hope to get round the competition rules and create such a large bank, with particular dominance in Scottish retail and business markets.

That, after all, is the trade-off the government faces in handling the deal: reduced instability and less money required for the bailout, but at the cost of less competition on the high street.

And for the bank that thought it could get away from the clutches of government by appealling for foreign capital to shore up its balance sheet, it's not looking quite so smart now.

Barclays is in all sorts of trouble over the deal it struck with semi-sovereign investors in Abu Dhabi and Qatar.

With institutional investors in revolt, it's so bad that management have offered to forgo bonuses next year.

That could really hurt them, after one director secured a cool £14.8m last year, and as the right to give themselves bonuses was one of the main attractions of avoiding Treasury cash.

The other tactic to counter the criticism is for the entire Barclays board to put itself up for re-election, which is something of a nuclear option. So much for stability.

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• - What's this?

Not everything is driving south with the recession, but it does look like the motor industry is among the first to follow construction and banking over the precipice.

Let's start with the bit that's heading north.

You would have thought that depressed demand would push down prices.

But today we hear from Avis, the car rental company, that they intend to push up their prices by about 20%.

Bosses blame falling demand and the difficulty in off-loading their fleet cars into the second-hand market.

And in addition to higher costs, you will find their cars available at fewer locations.

The plan to raise prices is intended to impress shareholders. It may look rather less attractive to cash-strapped customers.

With the auto industry tanking, Halfords is looking relatively strong. Bosses at the spare parts-to-bicycle retailer reckon on car owners delaying decisions to buy new models, so they will call by for an extra bag o' spanners to keep their old jalopies roadworthy.

This could also be a good time for sales of puncture repair kits, as people take to two wheels for both environmental and cost reasons.

Even ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland chiefs have been taken aback by the high number of staff using the bike shed at our new Glasgow headquarters.

Altogether bigger scale is the grim future for America's car giants.

In September, GM, Ford and Chrysler secured 25 billion dollars in tax credits to help them make the transition to more fuel efficient models.

They had only just woken up to the impact of research and development of better engines, hybrids and electric models by foreign rivals, notably Toyota and Honda.

All their investment in fuel-thirsty SUVs - sports utility vehicles, or 4x4s - failed to spot the sudden change in consumer tastes when fuel prices soared during summer.

Now, the companies want another 25 billion dollars to bail them out of their current cash flow crisis, and they are lobbying furiously, with a warning that as many as 2.5 million jobs are linked to the big three down its extensive supply chain.

The Bush administration has responded by saying it could re-direct the 25 billion dollars already committed, which tells you something about its commitment to combating climate change as soon as fuel prices drop.

This is now one of the hottest topics for the incoming Obama administration and the lame duck session of Congress, but it has implications for European car manufacturing as well.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is having meetings today to consider the potential impact for GM's Opel factories, while Britain has Ford plants and GM manufactures under the Vauxhall badge.

British car makers are lobbying the Treasury to help support their financing subsidiaries, as part of the financial bailout.

But it doesn't look good for them. Gordon Brown is not well disposed to industry bailouts that effectively present an obstacle to free trade.

His fear is of protectionism driven by the US Congress, where many of the majority Democrats were elected earlier this month on a populist appeal not to "ship American jobs abroad".

The risk of meltdown for three American car icons, which used to be among the largest and most successful corporations in the world, are part of the same story you will find at a showroom near you.

Sales are down by more than a fifth on last year and industry experts reckon on around 15% of dealerships being on the brink of collapse.

Unlike Avis, don't expect prices to go up as a result.

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• - What's this?

Inflation is falling, and this winter's fuel prices are set to decline.

Interest rates are heading south, possibly to their lowest rates ever. Scottish property prices are still rising.

There were fewer people facing unemployment over the past three months than over the same period last year.

So our economic woes are surely behind us? Far from it. You can find some silver lining if you look for it, but there's a muckle great recessionary cloud attached to it.

On prices, we have a new prospect to worry us - deflation.

If demand for goods and services slumps far enough, the Bank of England's Governor, Mervyn King, reckons we could see prices falling.

It's already happening with property, you should be able to haggle down the price of a car, and you'll find high street shops already offering discounts at a time when they should be making their best margins ahead of Christmas.

If you think that process will continue, you may choose to put off buying big items until next year, assuming prices will be lower by then.

You may also feel forced to do that because you fear for your job, or because you're finding it harder and more expensive to get credit.

And if lots of people make that same decision to postpone spending, the collective effect is a vicious spiral of slumping demand. Lots of common sense choice by individuals mean a big bad choice for the economy.

Those rising property prices in Scotland, up by 0.1% according to Registers of Scotland, only measure the transactions taking place and only after they have been officially documented.

According to those in the business, the marketplace is emptying, as people hold properties off the market or refuse to accept lowered offers.

And those job fears are gathering pace.

The figures out today show an increase of 13,000 over the past three months to 126,000. That's lower than the same period last year, which is not what you might expect. And Scottish unemployment is hurting less than in England.

But if you measure the number of people claiming Jobseekers' Allowance in Scotland last month, you find it at 85,400, a rise of 12,800 on October last year.

How do we make sense of that? It looks like last year saw a bigger turnover of jobs, as people became unemployed - meaning they were registered as unemployed for a while - and moved back into employment over the three month period.

The figures suggest less turnover this year. And the Jobseeker figures for last month may reflect the sharp deterioriation in business confidence.

The evidence is mounting of employers preparing to freeze recruitment or shed staff.

Management at some manufacturing plants in England announced this week they are closing down for longer over Christmas as a device for reducing their pay bill. Workers will go two weeks without pay, and that will be paid back later next year ... if things pick up.

Will they? Well, there's not much economic forecasting for Scotland, but this morning saw one such report published by the Fraser of Allander Institute at Strathclyde University.

Its mid-range reckoning is on 4000 fewer jobs in Scotland this year, 37,000 fewer next year and 12,000 fewer in 2010. Only then will job numbers start growing again, by 12,000 in 2011.

It foresees Scotland facing less intense decline than England because it is less exposed to the property price slump. But the exceptional problems facing Royal Bank of Scotland and the Halifax Bank of Scotland are expected to punish the Scottish economy harshly.

"There is a probability that Scotland will go into recession in 2009 and that the effects may be felt harder here than the rest of the UK," conclude the economics boffins.

And their silver lining? It won't be as bad as the early 80s - this time, by contrast, government policy is intended to soften the blows.

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• - What's this?

A new ´óÏó´«Ã½ blog is born, and I'm starting where I left off - in newspapers.

In a previous blogging incarnation, I was a journalist at The Herald, and before that wrote a whole lot of verbiage for the Sunday Herald and The Scotsman.

So if there's one business story that's personal to me, it is the plight of Scotland's newspapers.

And the recently-released market figures make me worry for my former colleagues and their titles.

ABC, the organisation that measures print media circulation, found the latest figures for papers across Britain suggest the long-term decline is gathering pace.

Only the Financial Times has put on significant numbers in the past month. Up by 5%, it's been helped by the financial crisis and lots of giveaway copies for airlines and hotels.

The sharpest falls are for the Daily Star and Sunday Sport, with average sales down 15% on last year. Forgive me if I don't shed a tear.

However, the Sunday Herald is only just behind, and that should concern anyone who cares about the Scottish media, particularly as it has the broadest international vision of any Scottish paper.

The worry is not only a 14.75% fall in average sales for May to October when compared with last year, but also that 45,176 sales is perilously low for a newspaper to remain sustainable.

The commercial bulwark supporting the Sunday Herald, at its Glasgow head office, has been its daily sister paper, and although The Herald keeps its head above 63,000, that represents a fall on last year's six-month average of nearly 8%. Ouch.

The only national daily paper across Britain that has registered a sharper fall was The Scotsman, down 9.4% on the year to 51,259. Last month, for the second time, the Edinburgh-based daily saw a fall below 50,000, and the meaningful numbers require a further 10% of those to be stripped out as giveaways.

In the Sunday market its stablemate, Scotland on Sunday, was down nearly 8% over the six month measure, to 66,000 copies.

The big sellers on the Sabbath also posted painful losses, with the Sunday Mail down nearly 7% to 475,000, and the Sunday Post dipping below the 400,000 mark over the past half year. It's not that long since it sold more than a million each week, so it's been a long fall - jings, crivvens and help its boab.

With 351,000 sales in Scotland, the once indomitable Daily Record is now outsold by The Scottish Sun - an edition of the London-based 'Current Bun' - by an average margin of 29,000.

It has long been noted that devolution, and increasing divergence for Scotland, has run counter to the fortunes of Scotland's indigenous press.

And while London-based papers are in decline throughout the UK, their Scottish editions are holding up better than Scottish-based publications.

Over the past six months, when The Times has had promotional pricing offers and has put more meat on its Scottish offering, it has put on an average 47 daily sales. Not exactly whopping, but anything out of the red is to be welcomed.

These figures matter to Scottish papers' advertisers, who want to know they are reaching consumers' eyeballs. Both Herald and Scotsman groups have been putting effort into online readership - though they are behind their London-based rivals in doing so.

The consequences for advertising revenue of such low print circulation is going to hurt badly. Don't expect the recession to make life any easier for them any time soon.

One hunch-based forecast I can offer for the upturn at the end of this downturn, whenever it comes, is that the newspaper market is going to look very different by then.

The challenge for Scotland's flagship quality papers looks a simple one - survival.

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