This week's blogs: rescue me

The government is making it clear that ‘fairness’ is the agenda which should drive the way we all deal with the consequences of the recession and how we get out of it. Business secretary Peter Mandelson is also thinking about which strategic firms need to be saved.

As a consequence, we believe that Lord Mandelson now needs to take centre stage and deliver an industry rescue statement to take emergency action before the recession bites too deeply.

He needs to commit the government to taking immediate action on how any administrations, administrative receiverships or liquidations actually take place to ensure that first priority is given to employees of a business instead of the business’ bank.

David Bailey is professor of economic policy and international business, University of Birmingham, and John Clancy

blogs.birminghampost.net/business

Anyone who has tried to see live music in the last few years will have noticed how tough it has become to secure tickets for concerts. Events seem to sell out in a matter of minutes (hours for less popular bands) ­ even when tickets are £100 a pop. Gig-going has become a national pastime.

But the credit crunch is taking its toll here too. As one promoter told The Guardian: ‘It’s getting harder to sell tickets. Bands that tour regularly are finding it harder. People are seeing bands maybe once [during the life of] a record, whereas they used to see them a couple of times.’

And it gets worse. Complaining that a recent show by teenage ‘heartthrobs’ McFly hadn’t sold out, manager Matthew Fletcher told the paper: ‘We put our tickets on sale just as the economy was slowing down, our album came out the week Lehman Bros were going under, and we couldn’t have had an album and tour on sale at a worse time.’

I never had investment bankers down as McFly’s core audience.

Damian Wild is editor in chief and publisher of Accountancy Age
accountancymatters.accountancyage.com/

Larry Elliott said in The Guardian that the lessons of the financial crisis are instructive. Almost every piece of advice rammed down the throats of poor countries by the Washington consensus ­ privatise, liberalise, de-regulate ­ is now being turned on its head in the west.

He’s right. But as he also notes the IMF are still applying the Washington consensus prescription in the developing world. This has to stop now. It has failed.

Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK
taxresearch.org.uk/blog