Brown's "record employment"

Mike, Brighton

"Alistair Darling has denied putting the government's fiscal rules at risk by borrowing £2.7bn to compensate those who lost out under the 10p tax rate."
No problem, he'll just change the rules. Again.

ToryBoy

Industrial realignment of the early Thatcher years - interesting euphemism...

Perry

[Fraser - have I posted this already? If so, apologies.]

Never possible I’m sure, but would be pleased to see an analysis of real jobs (with practical benefit and use to society) vs. those of an indifferent or bureaucratic cum local-government nature. [And I don’t include estate agents in the useful category.]

Tiberius

ToryBoy: study Britain's economic decline in the 1970s, which from 1973 to 1979 was under the stewardship (if you can call it that) of Wilson, Callaghan, Healey and, of course, Derek Robinson, and you will see why the "realignment" was imperative to the survival of the country as a major economic nation.

Jennie

Notice the trough of the early-80s Thatcher recession followed by the peak of the late-80s Lawson boom, fuelled by low interest rates and easy credit. Then the rate fell sharply during the early-90s recession - since when the it has been fairly stable but the trend gradually upwards.

Labour's record on employment doesn't look bad at all. Unless you actually prefer the boom and bust of the Tory years.

Ian C

Yes Jennie, but the stability started in 1992. And since 2002/3 it has been achieved by pretending inflation was lower than it was, creating a bubble with the resulting lower than required interest rates and spending our money as if it was theirs to burn.

Patrick

It is not bad that there are 1.6m more jobs in the economy than there were 20 years ago. Almost 30m in employment is a record for the UK. But these figures also show the quiet competence of the Major/Clarke era - which is rarely acknowledged by commentators on both sides of the spectrum. Curiously, the author gives much of his credit of the credit to Lawson, which led to negative equity and astonishingly high interest rates.

John

Yes, basically Bean and Glove Puppet lie. Now let's hear something new.
Amazingly, ToryBoy and especially Jennie seem to be captives of their lies, even at this late date. It's almost funny, in a sad sort of way, to hear Jennie talk about 'Lawson boom, fuelled by low interest rates and easy credit', given that this is exactly the method Bean and Puppet have been using in leading us to the current disastrous situation. And we've seen nothing yet: it'll get much much worse, as Bean steals even more of our money to try to save to unsaveable 'Labour' government.
Yes, give me the steady and intelligent Major every time over these incompetent amateurs who have destroyed the economy by failing to understand something very basic during the artifical boom years: the pay day will come, as sure as anything, and you need to save for it, the concept they have not begun to grasp.

Robbie

Economic activity isnt the number of people in work -look at the ONS definition:

'A person is economically active if they are either employed or unemployed in a particular period'

The employment rate is different and according to the ONS in march- 'These figures for the number of people in employment and total hours worked are the highest since comparable records began in 1971'

Fraser Nelson

Patrick, the vast majority of those jobs are imported. Very different thing to turning the unemployed into workers. I agree about Major/Clarke but also believe Lawson is underappreciated.

Fergus Pickering

But there are more JOBS because there are more PEOPLE. The totality ofjobs tells us nothing by itself. And how can you possibly measure whether a job (other than, say, shit-shovelling) has any practical use. I jave taught people stuff all my life. Has it been of any practical use? I have no idea, probably not.

Ray

The reason Nigel Lawson lowered interest rates is that - in common with finance ministers elsewhere at the time - the 1987 Stock Market crash was widely expected to plunge the world into recession.
However, this never materialised, resulting instead in the credit boom (and subsequent bust) of the the late eighties.
Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing. The difference with McBean's incompetent boom-and-bust, tax-and-spend policies is that any fool could see that from 2003 onwards the UK housing market was overheating dangerously and that the threat to the finances of over-extended borrowers, over-exposed lenders and HM Treasury was becoming ever more ominous.
And now the bubble has finally burst, catching McBean with his troosers well and truly around his ankles.

John

'A person is economically active if they are either employed or unemployed in a particular period'

NO!! - it's ' ... unemployed and activey seeking work'.
You wouldn't be a 'Labour' MP by any chance, would you?

'The employment rate is different and according to the ONS in march- 'These figures for the number of people in employment and total hours worked are the highest since comparable records began in 1971' -

totally irrelevant (quite apart from the fact that the ONS definition has been politicised, one of the most disgraceful things about this bunch, who have taken a professional civil service and turned it into a branch of the 'Labour' party machine); of course there are more people in work, because there are more PEOPLE, full stop - the result of the vast, uncontrolled immigration that nobody has authorised this disgraceful lot to foist upon us. Do some reading about the concept of percentages, then tell us there are 'more people in work'.
This nonsense is what you get when you have innumerate people in government (Bean, Glove Puppet) who think that all the rest of us are innumerate also.

Max

Being "economical with the truth" seems to have become a way of life. I have a poll on my blog on Gordon Brown's performance as PM - please take a few seconds to drop by and vote.

Max
http://theerrorlog.blogspot.com

Robbie

John - being "unemployed and actively seeking work" does not mean actually being in work

So its wrong to use economically active to measure employment

On percentages - current employment rate is 74.9%, which given the margin of error is the same as the 75.0% in early 1990. Moreover this rate has been sustained for a far longer period that in 89/90.

Jennie

John - yes, Brown behaved in a similar way to Lawson, and the consequences might be similar as well. But not as disastrous - because Brown's bubble was nothing like as inflated as was Lawson's.

Rex Burr

If our creative government passed a law that householders were not allowed to clean their own windows but had to have their neighbour do it for taxable payment it would, at a stroke increase employment and tax receipts and the gross national product would grow. The payments would be returned as tax credits.
However, nothing of substance would have changed but the country would 'appear' wealthier and better managed.

Patrick

Lawson was a great chancellor in that he simplified the tax system. The dirty restructuring work was done under Howe. However, their was a pernicious undercurrent to Tory economic success in the 80's whcih was the growth in unemployment and the sharp rise in those moving onto disability benefits. Once, again, Major and Clarke steadied the ship. The ERM debacle cost under £4bn - small change by today's standards. 1.6m jobs added to the economy is no bad thing - especially when many manufacturing jobs have been exported to China. Labour's greatest failing, in y view, is that they were insufficiently robust over the past decade, in benign economic times and with enormous goodwill in the early years, in tackling the IB/IS claimant counts which leaves many of our communities in a benighted state. But this rot of increased welfare rolls started in the 80's - under Lawson.

JR

Fraser - you're wrong on this can you correct?

As Robbie points out the economic activity rate isn't the % of people in employment! You've got all sorts of things going on in that graph including withdrawal from the labour market by large numbers of people moving onto incapacity benefit (during the 80s and 90s), entry into the labour market of large numbers of women, in the 80s and 90s a change from non-benefit inactivity to benefit dependency, and yes some migration effects undoubtably throughout the period. But this tells you very little about true employment and a lot more about the supply side of the economy.

bill hartas

Yes - Fraser Nelson confuses employment and economic activity. If you look at employment rates (numbers in employment as a % the working age population)then over the Thatcher years employment rates averaged 71.5%, under Major 72% and under Blair / Brown 74.2%. In only one Conservative year - (1989, during the brief and self-destructive 'Lawson boom') - were employment rates higher than today. Let's establish the facts before we start the argument.

Bill

Fraser Nelson

Patrick, I agree with you that incapacity benefit was a Thatcher-era mistake - she thought a one-off cost of deindustrialisation but it kick started a new class of welfare dependency. But I regard unemployment as a temporary blip which accompanied deindustrialisation - painful, yes, but necessary. It was an undercurrent that had pretty much drained by 1990 and came back during our disastrous foray into the ERM. And then was institutionalised by Labour which could have eradicated it - but used immigrant workers instead. Most of those 1.6m jobs you mention are accounted for my immigration - I think Brown is wrong to take a bow for Poles' hard work. I do regard imported labour to be fundamentally diffreent than taking British people from welfare to work.

Robbie, you are right that in referring to "economic activity" I include those actively seeking work. I should have made that clearer in the above piece, so it's a fair cop. As you say, if you look at only those in work then Brown is shown to get closer to Thatcher's peak (except she used British workers and he used immigrant ones). I use "economic activity" rates because Brown's innovation lies in creating alternatives to work and he can't be allowed to get away with it. More men (as a %) have dropped out of the labour market now than at any point in recorded British history - a trend concealed by the fact that more women are in the labour market now. I strongly believe one cannot make those not seeking work into Orwellian un-people (as Brown often does) when discussing the extent to which British prosperity has been shared.

One thing, though. If jobs are shed in the slowdown, Brown's salvation may be that immigrants simply go home rather than stay in Britain and take places on dole queues as they did under Thatcher. His last undesereved piece of good luck.

Bill hartas

Fraser - in your reply to Robbie you say "Brown's innovation lies in creating alternatives to work and he can't be allowed to get away with it. More men (as a %) have dropped out of the labour market now than at any point in recorded British history". Check the facts on the ONS site at http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/TSDdownload2.asp

Working age male activity rates fell from 91.5% in 1979 to 84.8% in 1997 ( a fall of 6.7%). They've fallen a single percentage point further in the last 10 years (83.8% in Jan-March 2008) Brown's made little progress with male inactivity but the rot set in during the Tory years. The facts simply don't fit your argument - fact.

ToryBoy

Tiberius - it was the awkward euphemistic phrasing - industrial realignment (the economic equivalent of collateral damage perhaps?) that I was commenting on, rather than the need for a different economic policy.

Interesting that your analysis of 70s British economic decline begins in 1973 and yet you fail to mention Anthony Barber and Heath in your roll-call of shame...

Patrick

Fraser, you speak of Brown having a 'last undeserved piece of good luck.' Wow! If he is lucky, it sure don't look that way to most of us at them moment. I dispute that all these new jobs have been taken by immigrants. You fail to take into account growth in the working age population, as a result of the baby boomers entering the labour market from the late 80's. There are more people in work, and of working age in the UK now than ever. I agree that the welfare rolls are an incredible waste on so many levels and that Labour has squandered a huge opportunity (and oodles of cash)over welfare reform. But it is not a case of Thatcher/Lawson unadulterated good, Blair/Brown unalleviated bad. Iain Duncan Smith's valauble work on social breakdown has filled ground that the Tories had previously vacated - and many of his case studies in Breakdown Britain reflect some of the good practices in tackling welfare, drugs and debt that has emerged in the Labour era. It is vital that the Tories get a grip on this and execute it more effectively, and less wastefully, than Labour. Waste and incompetence, in my view, has been Brown's legacy. But other trends were at work. The European Treaty of Accession, which both British parties were in favour of, has resulted in the influx of Poles. In my view, they've been brilliant for us too.

Kram Ekosum

Fraser, Robbie, bill hartas etc. For the non-economists among us could you explain exactly how Thatcher and Howe "caused" the unemployment when the country had already been haemorrhaging for nearly a decade. Barber, Heath, Wilson, Callaghan, Healey et al were the ignorami that led to the IMF stepping in in 1976. Why is this never mentioned anymore?! Do you not think that the effects of economic policy take decades not a few years to come to fruition? Help, please...
The facts are that both parties have presided over swathes of the population living on Welfare over the last 30 years. Actual employment rates naturally follow the state of the economy; recession=job losses, shock horror. Patrick is right, Fraser not all the jobs have gone to immigrants.
Thank God for you John - "Yes, give me the steady and intelligent Major every time over these incompetent amateurs who have destroyed the economy by failing to understand something very basic during the artifical boom years: the pay day will come". Why do none of you commentators challenge the mendacious politicians? They take credit for things that are well outside their sphere of influence but when tough times come around they deny all responsibility. Fules like me thought that it was AFTER leaving ERM/EMU(then supported by virtually all MPs bar the "bastards") we started the economic recovery. It should be no surprise that foreigners have taken more jobs; they have a more serious work ethic and have never lived off benefits!