THIS recession really is pants, and it’s got us with our knickers in a right old twist. For the latest economic indicators are not to be found in the figures for rising unemployment or falling output, but in the comparative sales of men’s underwear.

Yes, high street giant Debenhams has revealed that Y-fronts have forged to the front this year, outperforming more trendier styles such as boxer shorts and trunks.

It appears the Y-front surge took hold just as the recession really began to bite, and the last time this relatively conservative item of male clothing outsold boxers was the early 1990s, when the country was last racked by economic gloom.

So why does the financial outlook affect our undies? Debenhams spokesman Ed Watson made the slightly curious observation “these are the sort of pants our fathers wore”, before suggesting: “They provide a much greater sense of security than loose-fitting boxers, and perhaps, in these troubled times, that’s what men need to feel.”

Well, there you have it; it’s all about a very physical feeling of security and comfort.

However, previous thinking on the links between fashion and financial downturns seems to suggest some other psychological factors may be at work here.

Historians of these matters have suggested that skirt lengths tend to reduce during good times, citing flapper fashions in the Roaring Twenties and miniskirts in the Swinging Sixties, and increase again during the days of depression.

Since it’s the economic weather that’s turning colder in these cases rather than the actual temperature, this would appear to suggest a psychological urge to turn to more conservative, less flamboyant fashions in more straitened times. It’s almost as though we don’t want to appear to be showing off when the mood is generally gloomy. And it seems, for men at least, that this applies to underwear as well as our outer apparel.

So never mind the latest forecasts from the CBI and their ilk; the first sign of recovery will be an upsurge in sales of skimpy underwear – for blokes. No doubt someone, somewhere, will be offering PhDs on pants studies in the near future.

And perhaps scurrilous journalists and unscrupulous City traders will be checking old clothes receipts in the bins round the back of Downing Street.

Because it may be that the information we really need to assess UK plc’s prospects is what kind of pants Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling are buying these days – always assuming they don’t follow Scottish traditions about what to wear under their kilts.

If we find they’ve been stocking up on long-johns, then we’ll know we’re really in trouble.



•SORRY to go on about civil liberties again after last week, but I was particularly annoyed when Immigration Minister Phil Woolas used the arrests of about a dozen men following “terror raids” in the north-west of England at Easter to justify the further erosion of our freedoms, this time through changes to passports and our ability to travel abroad.

For goodness sake, I thought, these men haven’t even been charged with anything, let alone found guilty, and they’re starring in Government propaganda.

Then, lo and behold, it emerged precisely none of the men would face any charges at all, though some were likely to be deported.

It would be nice to think Mr Woolas might apologise for his misleading comments – particularly when you consider this is far from the first time much-trumpeted “terror raids” have failed to put anyone in the dock – or maybe even rethink his policies. Sadly, I fear I will wait in vain.

Oh, and isn’t there just a little irony in uniformed police officers being so keen on hiding their identities in public (concealed ID tags and an aversion to cameras come to mind) while the rest of us face ever-growing official snooping and surveillance, courtesy of the likes of Mr Woolas?