Snowmail: unemployment creeps up

Last Modified: 16 Jul 2008
By: Jon Snow

On the show tonight.

I begin with an abject arithmetical apology. Somehow my three and eight got confused. Not that inflation was 8.3 per cent or, as I said, 3.3 per cent, but it was in fact 3.8 per cent. Please blame the hurly burly or, in the immortal words of Jesse Jackson, blame my head not my heart.

Inevitably there are more figures out today. Unemployment, still far from dramatically up, but up by 12,000. Of course, that doesn't take into account the recent spate of construction workers, and we don't know how many of the burgeoning number of City workers that are thrown out of work actually register as unemployed.

Government fuel duty U-turn

The opposition is giving the government a pasting over fuel prices. Damned if they do, damned if they don't. But today the chancellor has announced that he's postponing the proposed 2p hike in fuel duty.

Fiscal environmentalism is sooo last year. Will more green taxes end up in the bin or being quietly dropped? And does it matter when the markets may be doing the job for them?

MPs' expenses row rumbles on

It's not the best day for MPs to be debating their own expenses regime. The Tories want to abandon the John Lewis list, which is the yardstick by which you are allowed to equip your second home as an MP. They think you should just get the home and it's up to you to find the content.

The Labour party seems to want to go for a cheaper list. Austerity beckons. The vote will be before we go on air.

Israel exchanges prisoners for bodies

There's been extraordinary prisoner exchange between Hezbollah and Israel: live Lebanese prisoners plus some militants' bodies in return for two dead Israeli soldiers. Jonathan Rugman looks at what it tells us about the state of Middle East negotiations.

Is coal making a comeback?

We'll be reporting on how coal is making a comeback in Britain, with companies actively considering reopening previously uneconomic deep coal mines and protesters dogging the gigantic wheels of open cast mining tracks, in an attempt to stop them from starting to change the landscape.

Hadrian reexamined

Finally Hadrian. Perhaps a better man than history has so far cracked him up to be, despite the claims of paedophilia and other misdeeds against him.

Nicholas Glass reports from both the wall and the city of Rome that he may have been a rather splendid chap. At least, that seems to be the drift of the latest British Museum blockbuster exhibition.

We shall be exhibiting as ever is at seven. See you then on 4. Best wishes. Jon