Don't turn on the Tele or pick up a Newspaper. It will only depress you!

I joked today with people playing Bridge at Eastwood House that Hugh Edwards should be banned from opening the BBC Six O'clock News by saying "and here is the news" because it should really be "and here is the bad news".

The media persist in battering us with more and more stories of job losses, business failures, financial loss by the government and taxpayer, further loss of business confidence and political sleaze. They do so, I am sure, in the interests of fairness and no doubt citing the public's right to know, but what they fail to understand is that as much as we all do want to be told the truth and how bad things are going to get we also want to hear that things will get better and that in time we can all expect better times to come.

So today it was terrific to hear that 1,000 new jobs are going to be created in the Clyde shipbuilding industry. Proper jobs are being created in manufacturing just as we lose thousands of jobs in the service sector. What a turn around! Welders, engineers, riggers, pipe fitters and crane operators are all to be recruited so that our shipyards can fulfil MoD contracts and are a welcome ray of sunshine on what appears to be a dark economic horizon.