MAIL COMMENT: A glimmer of light in all the gloom?

By any measure, this is a grim day for our floundering economy, with inflation roaring ahead at a rate far worse than predicted.

The Consumer Prices Index has shot up to 4.4 per cent  -  double the figure in January.

Millions are already struggling.

The price of basic groceries has gone up by 25 per cent in a year.

Gas, electricity and water bills are going through the roof.

To add to the feelbad factor, the housing market, already slowed to a snail's pace, has been brought to a juddering halt by Treasury dithering over stamp duty.

And we can expect more bleak news, when the Bank of England publishes its quarterly projections for inflation and growth.

Yet it isn't all gloom.

Oil prices have tumbled from 147 dollars a barrel to 113.

The cost of other commodities has been falling for weeks.

Wage settlements have generally been kept under control.

So, if nothing more goes wrong (and it's a massive 'if') inflation should begin to fall.

We could even see a cut in interest rates by December.

Though things will probably get worse before they get better, there might  -  just might  -  be a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

Snoopers' charter

Information Commissioner Richard Thomas says increasing levels of surveillance is 'a step too far for the British way of life'.

From this most intrusive of governments comes a profoundly dangerous plan that would go a long way towards turning Britain into a Big Brother state.

Next year, under an EU directive promulgated with enthusiastic support from our own Ministers, telecom companies will keep details of every phone call we make, not to mention every e-mail and click of the mouse on the internet, for a period of 12 months.

The scheme is supposedly designed to catch terrorists, but Labour has so eagerly beefed up the EU directive that it has become a snoopers' charter, aimed at comparatively trivial offenders too.

Worse still, it won't just be police and MI5 that have access to the records.

Town halls are being given the same power.

But why trust council busybodies who already misuse such laws to track down litter louts and other minor offenders?

As we report elsewhere, prying officials now even want access to Britain's bedrooms, to check on anyone claiming council tax discounts for living alone.

Information Commissioner Richard Thomas warns that such creeping surveillance is 'a step too far for the British way of life'. He is right.

Yes, we must fight terrorism.

But this scheme comes from a government that makes a habit of losing sensitive information.

It gives bureaucrats powers the East German Stasi would have envied.

It is wide open to abuse. And it will cost taxpayers £50million.

The Mail has a simple message to Ministers: keep your noses out!

Decline of the BBC

Sir Bill Cotton, the BBC's former managing director of television, died this week

Terry  Wogan certainly struck a chord with his lament that 'old-fashioned thoroughness and commitment' no longer exist at the BBC.

How many viewers and listeners feel instinctively that today's Corporation is forgetting the values that once made it great?

The death of Sir Bill Cotton, former head of BBC Television, is another reminder of what we have lost.

He oversaw legendary programmes such as The Two Ronnies, Morecambe And Wise and Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Dad's Army might never have appeared, but for him.

A television genius with the popular touch, he believed passionately in quality and public service broadcasting.

How sad that today's BBC seems to put more faith in empire-building, politically correct posturing and showering our money on 'stars' such as Jonathan Ross.