Eggs 'contain egg!'

Why? On the front of the carton of eggs was a description "Free range, 12 medium British eggs". Inside, on the lid, was allergy advice "contains egg".

It was the same story on the milk carton: allergy advice "contains milk".

Is this absolute nonsense another load of stupidity from Brussels, or is it the supermarket being ultra careful in case it gets sued from someone trying to make a quick buck trying to pretend that he/she didn't know that eggs contain egg or milk cartons don't contain milk?

Either way, it's another example of how ridiculous this country is getting.

I discovered one gem of good news in the national press in the last day or so (they're so hard to come by but I wrote about that last week).

It was that because interest rates had fallen and prices of goods in the shops had gone down, people were finding they had more money in their pockets and were asking to pay additional amounts off their mortgages.

Good for them, I thought '“ at least some people were having some common sense and were not spending everything they had and racking up more debt.

But it also got me thinking that we are now creating a two-tier Britain.

We've always had a two-tier Britain '“ the haves and the have-nots and some of that has been caused in the good times by those people who choose to spend, spend, spend with no thought of tomorrow and then rush onto the benefit bandwagon when things get tough.

But now we are seeing hundreds of thousands of people thrown out of work through no fault of theirs.

And the vast majority of those people are those working for private companies shedding staff as quickly as they can to cope with the economic downturn.

The lucky ones are those people who work for government departments, or in local government '“ in fact, all in the public sector.

And in the middle of a recession (if not depression), they really are the lucky ones. Their jobs don't suddenly disappear overnight and not only that, they retire with nice, cosy pensions.

If a firm goes to the wall and people are thrown out of employment, there's precious little chance of them finding another equivalent job.

But it's business as usual in the public sector. Workers in county and town halls can afford to pay the 3.99% (above inflation) county council tax rise about to be inflicted on us by county.

In fact, they probably are finding they are far better off than they were because prices in the shops have come down, as has petrol and mortgage interest rates.

Spare a thought for those less fortunate in shops, offices and factories in private firms who have the threat of redundancy hanging over them, or who already have been told there's no prospect of pay rises now or in the immediate future.

Councils should have been told there will be no tax rises this year or any year until this recession turns the corner. If that means some unessential council services being cut back, then so be it.

The public sector as well as the private must share the burden of this recession equally, otherwise we will see a growing problem of the public sector "haves" versus the private sector "have-nots" and that could quickly lead to serious civil strife.

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