Put Asunder

The Local Government Association has registered increases in demand for debt counselling and relationship counselling, and predicts that there will be a larger than usual number of divorce proceedings in January. Divorce proceedings during January are sometimes as much as fifty per cent higher than in other months, presumably because of the many New Year resolutions about sloughing off bad habits; but this year's triple incentive of global economic ructions, corporate hysteria and New New Labour incompetence will, according to the Local Government Association, serve to make matters worse than ever. Family values, like Britishness and the free market, are not quite the bastion they used to be when faced with "the multiple pressures of Christmas, mortgage arrears and recession".