The dreaded unemployment figures were published today. Davy Boy and Ed had a bit of a roustabout at PMQ’s.  The TV hacks and high priced experts, dredged up from wherever, added their take on what this meant.  People were quite surprised that young peoples unemployment wasn’t at the million mark.  Statistics poured out and were analysed, fondled and demonstrably cherished.  Another YTS clone initiative was launched with all the prospects of success of the last one back in the day.  The Liam Fox saga briefly intruded on the main stage and in some of the more lurid red tops but a pretty ordinary day for the political movers and shakers of our Island.

It would also be a pretty ordinary day for the any one of the 400,000 long term unemployed as well. No real reason to look for a job when there aren’t any to be had – Hull had 400 odd jobs on offer today and 12000+ people after them.  And still the great intellectual behemoth that is Georgie Boys economic strategy ploughs its undisturbed and unwavering course through stormy seas heading inexorably towards the second part of a double dip recession.  This master plan called for the deepest and most savage cuts to public services since the Second World War; cuts so sharp and deep even Margaret Thatcher would have baulked from them during her social engineering crusade of the 70’s.  This, however, was not the only side of George’s master plan.  The large numbers of worthless skivving jobs-worth Public Sector workers were to be instantly swept up by a burgeoning private sector revival that would create jobs at a rate never before achieved, even in times of boom.  If I had received such a business plan and strategy I would have pasted it to the back of the toilet door so that visitors to that facility would have some form of light entertainment.  This government came to power in the middle of a credit crunch.  Despite the protestations that they were clearing up Labours Mess, they ignored the fact that the world was in the middle of a severe recession and that, whilst we might still be the worlds eighth biggest manufacturer, we have very few products that we can export.  So we have failed to create the jobs.  We have also increased the drain on the public purse because more unemployed means more money spent on benefits and less money coming in on tax. So the gap in our finances is actually getting wider and costing us more because  the private sector cannot create the jobs.

17 years ago unemployment was this high and we have two factors which are common with then and now.  Both times we had a Tory Government.  The one in 1994 was tottering on its last legs but it was there.  The second common factor is that the industry necessary to create new products and manufacture them were not there.  They had been extinguished by the De-industrialisation of Britain in the 70’s.  Partially to strip the unions of the excess  of power that they had gained and were abusing and partly to move to the ever so sexy knowledge economy where we would think big thoughts and produce world beating products.  In fact we are still suffering from that now, 20 years later.  We have had a number of recessions in the last 100 odd years and mainly they have been caused by the Tory obsession with cost cutting and slashing of public sector funding.  Market forces do indeed rule the economy, supply and demand must always find their equilibrium point, but if the chancellor and PM have frightened the public witless, with doom and gloom to not win an election and gain power and subsequently blame Labour for every practice under the sun,  they cannot now be surprised when people start to hoard their cash for a rainy day. Demand falls – supply cuts back;  costs are cut to remain competitive;  workers laid off and demand falls even further.  All this is secondary school economics – so how come Davey and Georgie boys didn’t work it out.  Quite simply it overwhelmed them and they are now stuck in a perpetual loop repeating the famous Thatcher response “There is no alternative”.

They are staring to be rumbled. The main reason why they were not was because normal people would not believe that the strategy was so obviously flawed.  Now at the mercy of the winds from the Euro zone all they can do is look into the cameras like a pair of Energiser Bunnies and repeat Plan A.  What makes me most angry is the young people’s  total.  Almost a million young people with no jobs is an indictment that we all stand accused of .  Those who get jobs breath a sigh of relief to get a shift in McDonald’s or Burger King  Are we going to be a nation of hash slingers on one side and astrophysicists on the other with nothing in-between?    All I know is that we are now on the cusp of learning a lesson I learned a long long time ago – Labour may be profligate with the economy but they cant break it as easily and quickly as the Tories.  We are now squandering the opportunities to create growth and give that most precious s of commodities to our young people – hope.  George – the Wealth of our nation is not the % age of GDP the debt is but the accumulated skills knowledge energy and endeavour of our people.  Stop telling people how bad it is and starting giving some stimulus.  Labour should be out of sight in any polls by now – but its not.  Ed Balls needs to start concentrating on delivering a concise achievable deficit reduction and growth strategy and stop trying to convince people that he is clever.