At last Labour tell it as it really is!

Photograph: Junko Kimura/Getty images

The Guardian reported yesterday:

Darling warns that the economic times faced by Britain and the rest of the world "are arguably the worst they've been in 60 years". To deepen the sense of gloom, he adds: "And I think it's going to be more profound and long-lasting than people thought."

I have been really disappointed with Gordon Brown, not for not solving our financial problems, but for not telling us the truth - that we are all in for hard times ahead.

This will make a lot of decisions hard for me as a County Councillor in future. Voters cannot keep asking for improvements - a lot of times I will be recommending that people wherever possible help themselves. We cannot continue expecting the government at any level to keep running around doing things for us. Where possible we will have to do things for ourselves and the role of government will be to facilitate/coordinate our own actions.

The other thing that must be reversed is for us all to be more self supporting. It could be a good thing if Russia cuts off our supply of oil if it makes us sit up and take note that we need more of our own energy producing industry - preferably renewable.

Hopefully we will again, one day, start producing our own steel, instead of buying our nails from China.

Times are going to be really hard and we're going to have do what feels like lifting ourselves up by our boot laces.

Don't throw those old overalls or tools out - we are going to need them. I'm rolling my sleeves up - are you!

Luckily we've a few role models to follow - look at Keothavong's expression above!