Purnell's deceiving himself over "full employment"

adrian drummond

I don't suppose the BBC's A. Marr challenged this assertion?

Nicholas Millman

So, if we have reached full employment who are all those people in the job centres? Shouldn't we be closing them or laying off those DWP staff who are no longer required? Marr is part of the New Labour spin machine - I wouldn't believe anything in one of his "interviews". The whole thing is probably scripted by New Labour's Propaganda Kompanie.

David

That is not very sensible of Mr Purnell. I came across this quotation the other day: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will come to believe it. The lie can only be maintained for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the state.” Substitute the word "spin" for the unparliamentary "lies" and you have a modernised version of Goebbels speak. Unfortunately for this government more and more people are less and less willing to swallow the spin that that they utter. Whether this will extend to public attitudes about the referendum that we are denied, or the curtailed debate in the HoC, on the Lisbon treaty seems to me to be a significant moment in our affairs.

Tiberius

Sadly, I fear Mr Purnell is enjoying his 15 minutes of fame by hitching himself to the Great Brown Delusion because 15 minutes of fame in any other scenario seems out of reach for him.

Faceless Bureaucrat

I wonder what the odds are on Purnell outlasting his predecessor?...

Trumpeter Lanfried

Why do they lie to us? Don't they understand how it diminishes them?

Fraser Nelson

Adrian, he was speaking in response to a fairly robust question from Marr - to the effect that "we've had ten years of hearing you'll sort out welfare, and it seems you just cant separate those who can work from those who can't." He also said that 5m are on benefits, which is why Purnell's "full employment" line seemed so weak. Nicholas, if Brown was responding he'd tell you that "full employment" is a technical term which actually means "natural" unemployment of about 3% to 7%. Given the UK is 5.3% ILO unemployment it would fall in that range (ditto Australia, USA, Ireland, Japan etc). But "claimant count" is at the lowest since 1975 (hence JP's "30-year low" line). Not suprising - the vast majority of UK joblessness lies on other categories.

TGF UKIP

Fraser, your defence of your fellow Scot is touching in its loyalty but quite unconvincing. It's true that Marr did once mention 4.7m on benefits but he then allowed Purnell to repeat several times the phrase "full employment" without making the obvious challenge "SoS how can you say there is full employment when 4.7m are kept on state benefits?" He was also careful to make no mention of the at least 1m immigrants in the workforce. Marr is very clever and also conscious of the many accusations of bias so he asks the questions but in a limited way so that they can be spun out of (as Purnell did on the 4.7m on benefits) and he never challenges Labour stats. The perfect examples being recently with Gordon when he raised the gold sale issue but was careful not to give the horrific figures, sold @ $275 now $900, and then let Gordon repeat and repeat without challenge that UK inflation was 2% compared with US at 4%. The thing that bugs me though and should be bugging all you Tories is that while Gordon, Purnell etc might get skewered by Fraser Nelson and might get an easy passage by A Marr they know fine well that the gang they ain't going to get skewered by is HM Opposition.

Dr Blue

The unemployed are now mostly classified as "Incapacitated" It's a convenient fiction...but it's still a fiction and needs to be nailed as the lie it is. Britain does not have full employment at present.

eric

85% of the unemployed in Scotland are white. 34% of the unemployed in London are white. Using the same dwp tool as the above author. http://83.244.183.180/100pc/jsa/ethnic_sum/ccgor/a_carate_r_ethnic_sum_c_ccgor_may07.html

David Lindsay

Nicholas Millman makes an interesting point. It is astonishing how many people are employed to service unemployment. A few years ago (well within the Blair Era), I was unemployed for a while and assigned to a lavishly resourced programme centre where I was routinely the only client while up to a dozen staff filled up the day with Friend Reunited and such like because they had nothing else to do. But they weren't employed by the DWP - entire private companies exist and thrive like this, guaranteed income from government contracts.

Jennie

It was Thatcher's government that first reclassified 'unemployment' figures as covering only those claiming unemployment benefit, the forerunner of JSA, itself. And it was the Major regime that first discovered the wheeze of shunting the long-term unemployed onto what is now called incapacity benefit. Labour has merely stolen Tory clothes!