ANOTHER 10,500 people joined the dole queues in Britain last month, the tenth consecutive one in which the claimant count grew. This sad statistic may not tally with the image of a thriving economy which Gordon Brown likes to portray but it is nonetheless real for those who now find themselves out of a job.

The unemployment figures would look a lot worse if it were not for the huge numbers who are on incapacity benefit. Tony Blair has promised that there will be reform of the system which currently sees about 2.7 million people registered as unfit to work, but this week there have been suggestions that his resolve may be weakened by backbench revolt. The lengthening queues at jobcentres might weaken that resolve further.

But while he works on the details of his welfare reforms, due to be revealed next month, the effects of rising unemployment will be being felt. The newly unemployed are unlikely to be indulging in a Christmas spending spree.

Retailers always approach the festive season with understandable nervousness since so much of their profit can depend on such a short period of potential extravagance. This year that nervousness appears to be well-founded. Even allowing for the fact that Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, meaning that the last week before the holiday has a full six shopping days in it, current trade on the high street is comparatively slow. The late burst may come but the level of discounting indicates that the stores dare not bank on it.

In his first economic speech as leader of the Opposition, David Cameron yesterday did not attempt to deny that Britain has been living through a period of growth in the economy, nor that the average Briton is wealthier than ever before. But the situation now looks less benign and he pointed out why that might be: the tax burden has risen.

Gordon Brown once said that “the objective of any government is to lower rather than increase the tax burden on ordinary families”. Yet the tax burden is rising and so are the other bills which ordinary families cannot escape. Increasing utility bills and council tax are eating into family budgets.

Business too faces increasing costs. Fuel charges are leaping ahead but labour costs also continue to rise. Although the latest figures show that average earnings growth slowed from 4.1 per cent in September to 3.6 per cent in October, the increase is still significant. Those retailers, still waiting for some Christmas cheer, know they face an even bleaker new year, with wage bills growing, rent demands rising and pumped up distribution costs.

Mr Cameron does not pretend to have all the answers to the slowing economy, in which business investment is the lowest since records began. At this stage in the political cycle, he has plenty of time to come up with some policies that might stop unemployment growing. In the mean time, he restricted himself yesterday to promising a “triple lock” on economic stability which would include establishing independent assessors to judge whether the Chancellor’s “golden rule ” was really being kept.

Currently, Mr Brown’s rule amounts to what he wants it to be. But even his flexible approach to statistics has failed to stop the dole queue growing.

Building up

THE British real estate investment trust (Reit) is taking longer to construct than the most elaborate palace but yesterday it edged a step nearer to completion as the necessary legislation was tabled in Parliament. From the beginning of 2007 there should at last be a new form of property investment available to investors.

Given Britons’ enthusiasm for putting their money into bricks and mortar, the new vehicles seem sure of an enthusiastic reception. Those who were disappointed to learn that they were not after all going to be able to put their second homes into their self-invested personal pensions may at least find some solace in buying Reit shares for their Sipp.

But whether existing quoted property companies decide to convert to Reits will depend on the conversion charge and that has yet to be determined. Reits have still not reached the topping out stage.

Sloppiness that aids abusers

THE £100,000 fine meted out to HSBC by the Financial Services Authority yesterday is hardly going to alarm the bank. It makes that much in pre-tax profit every six minutes.

But there is a touch of complacency in its claim that none of its customers was harmed by the fact that for 2½ years it completely messed up its reporting of share transactions to the regulator.

All honest investors are harmed whenever insider dealers and other market abusers are given a break. HSBC’s botched reporting gave any of its private clients contemplating a dishonest buck a much greater chance of not being caught. Share purchases were reported as sales, sales as purchases. In all, 900,000 deals were wrongly described.

The FSA, struggling at the best of times to nail insider dealers, can hardly have been helped by this level of misinformation.

But there is a more worrying aspect to the saga. It took investigators at the FSA 2½ years and 900,000 transactions before they twigged that something was wrong. A similar gaffe by the wealth management arm of UBS went undetected for more than five years.

The FSA is right that the onus is on investment banks and brokers to get the basic facts right. The FSA has enough of a mountain to climb in sifting information and assembling cases without having to worry about the accuracy of raw information it has to grapple with each day.

Nevertheless, it is disturbing that the errors could go undetected for so long. Every user of the share market is put at a disadvantage by such sloppiness.

Bets on bid

TODAY we see just how serious Macquarie is about owning the London Stock Exchange. A bid would have to be well over the 580p it mooted if it were not to be laughed out of Paternoster Square. City institutions have been buying at 615p but even a respectable premium on top might not be sufficient to outweight their fears of what the Australians’ ownership of the LSE might mean for charges. So the betting is that Macquarie will make an offer which, while not derisory, will be unacceptable and allow it to move on to another target.

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