House prices in London will slump in two years, an economic forecaster warned yesterday. The estimated 0.4 per cent drop would be the first for seven years. House prices in London will slump in two years, an economic forecaster warned yesterday. The estimated 0.4 per cent drop would be the first for seven years.
But the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), which produced the report, said that would only mark a pause and prices would pick up through the rest of the decade.A drop in London prices would send jitters through the UK market because the capital has tended to lead the trend in booms and bust for the country.The CEBR said prices in the capital would hit a peak of 19 per cent this year, up from 18.1 per cent in 1999, slow sharply to 5.2 per cent next year and fall by a “modest” 0.4 per cent in 2002. Prices last fell in 1995, by 0.5 per cent.Doug McWilliams, CEBR’s chief executive, said interest rates would go as high as 8 per cent. This would feed through to a standard variable mortgage rate of almost 10 per cent.

As higher rates cooled the economy, he said, borrowing costs would fall and the housing market would return to growth of 6 per cent a year by 2004.. People who have demanding jobs but have little control over their working environment may suffer a decline in health that is the equivalent to smoking 10 cigarettes a day, research published today reveals. People who have demanding jobs but have little control over their working environment may suffer a decline in health that is the equivalent to smoking 10 cigarettes a day, research published today reveals.
People who work in “high strain” jobs, those that are demanding but do not give the worker freedom to make choices, are at the same risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and depression as smokers and those who lead a sedentary lifestyle, the British Medical Journal shows.It also shows, by contrast, that those in equally pressurised jobs who can exercise a lot of control tend to be much healthier and happier.The findings suggest that employers could improve the health and mental well-being of their staff by introducing more flexible working conditions as a way of giving individuals more control.Ichiro Kawachi, a director at the Harvard Public School of Health in Boston, and the leading author of the study, said: “Stress causes wear and tear on the body. When you have to work day in day out in the sort of jobs where you have little control, then stress hormones take their toll.”But there is good and bad stress,” he said. “A chief executive may have just as much stress as his secretary but the secretary will suffer more ill health as he or she will have less control over their job.”Mr Ichiro suggested employers in all environments needed to look at redesigning jobs so that their employees had more “freedom and discretion” over their jobs.The study is based on questionnaires from more than 21,000 female nurses, who filled in details about their jobs, health and lifestyle over four years. The results show that women in the highest third of “job demands” and the lowest third of “job control” had the worst health whereas those with the highest control and lowest demands – “low strain jobs” – were the healthiest.The findings support previous research by Professor Michael Marmot, of University College London, who studied a group of 17,500 male civil servants for more than 10 years.The “Whitehall Study” shows it was not necessarily the top executives who were the most likely to suffer from heart disease; junior staff were found to be three times more likely to die of stress-related illness than high-flyers.. Fear of vandalism meant that one of the trains involved in the Paddington rail disaster had no emergency hammers to allow survivors to smash their way out, the inquiry into the crash was told yesterday.

Fear of vandalism meant that one of the trains involved in the Paddington rail disaster had no emergency hammers to allow survivors to smash their way out, the inquiry into the crash was told yesterday.
Robert Pamment, fleet manager for Thames Trains, said the only implement to smash windows on board the train at the time of the crash was a crowbar in a cupboard. “There was no obvious provision for passengers to break windows because our experience was that obvious provision led to some horrific damage and risk to the travelling public in normal travelling circumstances,” he said.He was speaking on the 12th day of the inquiry into the disaster in which a Thames turbo train collided head-on with a Great Western express train last October.Kenneth Hamer QC, representing the injured and families of victims, said: “Passengers caught up in a crash are entitled to expect safety equipment to ensure their safe exit from the carriage.”Outside the inquiry, a spokesman for Thames Trains confirmed that the hammers were removed up to three years ago because of vandalism. He said there were more doors and shorter carriages on Thames’ rolling stock so passengers were never far from an exit.”We did review the policy in view of what happened in October,” he said. “What we decided to do was to put some hammers back in where we have internal sliding doors.”Krishnan Karavadra, a supervisor for Thames Trains who dispatched the turbo from Paddington station on the day of the crash, told the inquiry the Thames Trains driver, Michael Hodder, 31, had smiled at him – “he was always smiling whenever you saw him,” he said.The inquiry was adjourned until Tuesday..

Lord Rogers, the architect of the Dome and a friend of Tony Blair yesterday attacked the designers of the Millennium Experience for dumbing down the zones. One of the most respected “Labour luvvies” in the arts world, Lord Rogers of Riverside, who was made a Labour peer in 1996, said the designers of the zones should have focused on quality rather than being “popular”. Lord Rogers, the architect of the Dome and a friend of Tony Blair yesterday attacked the designers of the Millennium Experience for dumbing down the zones. One of the most respected “Labour luvvies” in the arts world, Lord Rogers of Riverside, who was made a Labour peer in 1996, said the designers of the zones should have focused on quality rather than being “popular”.
“There was no really visionary person with a clear belief in charge of it,” he said. “We needed a ringleader with a vision – cultural or sports-related didn’t matter – but we didn’t have that You can’t just say, ‘I want to make the most popular place’. That isn’t a vision.” Peter Mandelson defended the zones against the charge of being “tacky” before the Dome opened, when he was the minister responsible for the Millennium Experience.Lord Rogers’s view is strongly shared by members of the Commons select committee on culture, media and sports, who this week began their investigation by visiting the Dome. “It was crap,” said one MP.Lord Rogers, whose design won world praise, said ministers could revive it by turning it into a sports centre or a concert hall by making sure the quality was the best.