The government expects unemployment to hit record levels next year
James Forsyth 4:54pm
Sophy Ridge has a good scoop in The News of the World today: the government is operating on the assumption that the number of unemployed will peak at 3.5 million in October 2010. This would be the largest number of people unemployed in modern British history. Indeed when you add in the people on other out of work benefits, it would suggest that the real figure for unemployment will be around 6 million.
That unemployment will not reach its peak until October 2010—after the next election—suggests that the economy will not start growing again in the third quarter of this year as Brown and Darling predicted in the PBR. It looks certain that the economic forecasts in the PBR will have to be revised downwards in the Budget this year, causing yet more damage to Labour’s standing on the economy.
PS Some Coffee Housers have asked why we haven’t blogged on Jacqui Smith's housing arrangements. Frankly, I don’t have much to say except that it seems like another case of an arrangement that is within the letter but not the spirit of the regulations and is corrosive of the public’s trust in politicians. Also when you consider the costs of the police protecting her sister’s house, one sees why grace and favour flats actually make sense.
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mitch
February 8th, 2009 5:06pm Report this commentAnother record for gordon "the idiot" brown pity they are all negatives.
How blair must laugh he left just before the crash.
A Land Fit for Gollywog Heroes
February 8th, 2009 5:42pm Report this commentPut all the unemployed on sickness benefit. No unemployment, problem solved.
Mark
February 8th, 2009 5:44pm Report this commentTruly frightening. How will we ever pay for this?
P.S. Jacqui Smith's housing arrangements are a disgrace.
Aless
February 8th, 2009 6:17pm Report this commentHopefully after next May those 3.5million unemployed will include 200 Labour MPs
Rhoda Klapp
February 8th, 2009 6:24pm Report this commentWith the best will in the world to believe badly of HMG and the Labour party, this assumption is for a contingency plan. Planners are supposed to do that.
Having said that, if they believe the numbers are anything like right, they obviously do not have any confidence in the pathetic so-called stimulus (is simulus a word? At first glance it looks like stimulus, then you see there's something missing and it's only pretend.)
In fact the measures they have announced are inadequate. What we need is some new thinking. We know that just putting money in people's pockets won't help. We can see that while they talk about Keynsian policy, they postpone actual projects which could help, like the carriers. The plan seems to be to wait for everybody else's stimulus to work. The problem is, that's what the others are doing too.
However, if DC were to ask at PMQs if the 3.5mil is correct, and the timescale, I can't see how the do-nothing taunt would apply.
Alan Phillips
February 8th, 2009 6:43pm Report this commentDue to disappearing finances having been made redundent in Febuary, I had the dubious pleasure of signing on for the first time in my life last september. I had equipted an office in my garden to start a business, but was told that to sign on I couldn't try and get the business going AND sign on, if even to cover the weeks I wasn't going to get paid at all. So faced with no income, I had to apply for jobs that knew I'd never get. As my 26 weeks were coming to an end, they (Job Seekers +) told me that I can sign up for New Deal, be paid the same as I would have been getting on JSA (£60.50 p/w) doing the business I had to abandon to be able to claim JSA!
Is it any wonder that people are leaving this country in droves? How does getting off my arse and doing something warrent being abandoned from any back up that could create jobs in the long run and turn wannnabe business owners (even in this climate) from being a burden on the state. The New Deal scheme, should be available from the day people wanting to go it alone, as a long term goal.
If DC could ensure that crazy situation can be turned around then they would get more support at a GE, given the job market will create many people being hamstrung in the way I have been, when all they need is a safety net when things are getting going...
James J
February 8th, 2009 7:55pm Report this commentFrom today’s On-Line edition of the Telegraph:
“A new foreign workers scandal has erupted after it emerged another house boat is being moored in Britain to provide accomodation for staff from abroad who are accused of taking local jobs. “
seb
February 8th, 2009 8:16pm Report this commentUnemployment will soon reach eight million. For years, the number of economically inactive people has stayed at about eight million. Six million of so of these are people who in any civilised country would be employed. Expected increases in the bogus 'official' unemployment total will bump the six million to eight and mean the government will run out of the means to simultaneously pay the benefits and day to day running expenses of the country. We have to assume that The Moron and Wendy have been told this on the QT and are on some sort of medication to prevent them leaping out of the nearest open window. Yes, when the truth dawns on the nation, emigration will be seen as the only practical solution.
Clarkson's a clever man. I'm glad that in his remark about Kevin Rudd, he raised the issue of nationa leaders knowing far more bad news than they let on. I'm sure he meant this to apply equally to The Moron.
Verity
February 8th, 2009 9:34pm Report this commentAlan Phillips - Good luck!
Steve Garner
February 8th, 2009 9:46pm Report this commentJames, you have the oddest sense of priority. You mustered enough outrage to blog twice on Carol Thatcher's use of the word golliwog in a private conversation but have nothing much to say about the Home Secretary's appalling misues of Parliamentary expenses at a time when the nation is railing at people on the make.
You really don't understand the public mood do you.
egh
February 9th, 2009 1:54am Report this commentSteve Garner - 9:46 p.m.
Just look at the colour of the pages here now. Clearly the euSSR doesn't brook any form of journalism that isn't communist. So the public, and the public mood - poof. Conservatives the new Proles; and Proles are for trampling on - especially if they're Brits.
P.S. Wonder what the racial breakdown is on the unemployed? Bet the majority are indigenes!
carol42
February 9th, 2009 1:54am Report this commentIs Jaqui Smith's sister paying tax on the £24,000 she is 'receiving' in rent?
Wilhelm
February 9th, 2009 1:21pm Report this commentAlan Philips
Become a criminal or ilegal immigrant and then you'll get all the benefits.
TGF UKIP
February 11th, 2009 7:59pm Report this commentJames, "One sees why grace and favour flats actually make sense."
Reasonable to assume from this that protecting her sister's house costs proportionately vastly more.
Makes it even worse doesn't it?
Home Sec devours costly police resources so that she can claim £24K pa.
Furthermore why is it left to Coffee Housers like C Powell to reveal that her sister is a BBC journalist. Presumably this was common knowledge among the hackery.
I really don't think you have any idea how your stance feeds the general view that hacks and politicos conspire together to ensure that too many things remain with village boundaries.
Not just Denmark!
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