Even lawyers are losing their jobs

Two signs today that the credit crunch has no respect for status
At one end of the economic scale, doorstep lender Welcome Financial Services is cutting jobs, and as we report here 200 of them at its operational headquarters in Nottingham.
At the other, the law firm Freeth Cartwright, which has its head offices in the city's professional quarter, is making around 60 staff redundant, as we report here.
Job losses in financial services may not come as a surprise, but the fact that a doorstep lender is cutting back tells you about the scale of the squeeze on money available for credit.
Job losses at a successful law firm might, but they are largely a result of the severe downturn in the property industry.
Law firms made hay while the sun shone on property and development, Freeth's strong reputation for planning and development advice seeing it expand as far as Manchester.
But with property at the heart of the financial storm, this particular revenue stream has been washed away, and Freeth is not the only advisory firm affected. Its chairman, Colin Flanagan, says it will 'take many months' for the market to recover.
One more interesting note today. As the BBC's Robert Peston observes here, there is increasing criticism of the Government's decision to cut VAT. Simon Wolfson, the chief executive of fashion chain Next (and a Conservative party supporter, by the way) said the Government should instead have cut income tax.
Is the Government going to be brave enough to admit that a well-meaning move that attracted a lot of headlines has, in the eyes of the retailers it was meant to help, turned out to be an expensive letdown?
It did say the cut was temporary, which may give it political wriggle-room to decide the £12.5 billion involved should go elsewhere. A change seems unlikely before April's Budget, though.
5PM UPDATE: The credit crunch has no respect for 200 years' worth of industrial history, either. Aftr this morning's troubles, we now discover that one of the oldest names in the textile industry, Viyella, has also been put into administration.
Once an industrial giant with factories across Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, the business had slimmed down drastically from its William Hollins/Coats Viyella glory days, with production done abroad and the brand running only a retail chain.
Owned by a Birmingham investment company, it had clearly found the retail firestorm too much to cope with.
In itself, Viyella's failure is not that shocking. But with jobs being lost and businesses falling into administration by the day, this is a worrying trend.