Everyone agrees that we have just come through the hardest winter in many a long year with record temperature levels below minus 20ºC. But are we about to enter even harder economic times?

Recently, Mervyn King the Governor of the Bank of England noted, “that UK wages were stagnant, and coupled with high inflation-this led to the longest decline in the real value of take-home pay in the UK since the 1920s”.

The MCW has previously shown here how UK is a highly unequal society with the gap between the rich and the poor greater than at any time since the end of he Second World War.

To make matters worse the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Government has announced the most severe austerity plan since 1922. It intends to take £86bn out of the economy over the next four years by cutting public expenditure.

It claims public sector job losses will be replaced by growth in private sector jobs. Yet the number of long term unemployed
has nearly doubled since 2008 to 840,000, with women and young workers disproportionately carrying the burden of unemployment. With five people chasing every vacancy there is a huge jobs deficit.

Young workers will be the hardest hit by unemployment with more than 1 million under 25 year olds currently on the dole
and 25% of university graduates have been unable to secure any employment.

The decision to cut the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) will no doubt see many more young unemployed workers joining the dole queues. For working women and men this hard long economic winter is set to continue with no sign of the chill abating.

In this edition we remind ourselves of the importance of the Review of Life Method (See, Judge, Act) as a means of
supporting our engagement in the world. This enables us to give witness to the call to renew the face of the earth where
human beings, the sons and daughters of God, should be placed at the centre of society’s priorities before money and
profit.