Politics

21 March 2009

Fraser Nelson reviews the week in politics

This makes it all the harder to understand why so many are once again gathering in Calais, using it as a staging post to enter Britain. Why flee to a country where unemployment is rising faster than anywhere in Europe? Because, crucially, there is no drop in the demand for immigrant workers. The Office for National Statistics confirms that so far the number of foreign-born workers (who took or created four out of five jobs since 1997) is still rising steadily.

All this is inextricably linked to the nature of the recession. Immigrants are still finding work here without much trouble. Many of these jobs will be ones which, as Lord Mandelson says, British people choose not to do (or, more accurately, are being paid not to do). But all this will look mighty suspicious to those who are actively seeking work. As immigrants are clustered in the south of England, there is the potential for political poison. It is a situation that could be horribly suited to the British National Party as they prepare for the June European and local elections.

Little wonder that Mr Brown has dropped his initial ambition to meet his National Economic Council twice a week in the bunker. The diet of bad news is overwhelming: official unemployment passing two million, heading inexorably to 3.5 million with a recession lasting well into next year. But worse for a Prime Minister for whom everything is party political, this is a recession taking its toll specifically on the voters to whom New Labour so energetically devoted itself before 1997. They are facing joblessness, negative equity and the conclusion that Labour has failed, utterly.

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Ken

March 19th, 2009 11:48am Report this comment

"Labour has failed, utterly."
...Poster that slogan all over Britain.

Labourboy

March 19th, 2009 12:43pm Report this comment

Only Iceland contracting faster? I could swear that Japan's economy has just contracted at an annualised rate of 10%, the USA at over 6%, and Germany is also faring worse than us. Just as France is about to enter a recession, Ireland is collapsing and Spain is too.

Simon Stephenson

March 19th, 2009 12:50pm Report this comment

"... Twycross Zoo in Warwickshire last month where 3,000 people queued for just 150 part-time jobs ... In the constituency of Bosworth, home of the zoo, claimant unemployment has almost doubled to 1,500 over the last year. Surveying that queue, one could tell that the number out of work, and still resisting signing on — presumably for reasons of pride — is much greater."

Or, perhaps, one could suspect that not all the 3,000 in the queue resided in the constituency of Bosworth. Or even that some in the queue were looking to supplement their incomes from employment by additional, part-time working at week-ends?

Wouldn't you want to rule out these possibilities before concluding that the Twycross queue was firm evidence of an understatement of the unemployment level?

richard

March 19th, 2009 7:18pm Report this comment

Apart from a mention of Liverpool you wouldn't know that northern England exists from your piece.

Hopefully the Conservative leadership wont make the same mistake as there is scope to make greater gains than in southern England, gains that the Conservatives need to make to get a majority.

And incidentally the economic sector which is losing the most jobs is once again manufacturing.

Mrs Rigby

March 21st, 2009 1:33am Report this comment

"... Twycross Zoo in ... where 3,000 people queued for just 150 part-time jobs. ... Surveying that queue, one could tell that the number out of work, and still resisting signing on — presumably for reasons of pride — is much greater."
Wrong!

You are forgetting the tortuous rules for claiming benefit. If your partner/husband/wife is in work it is unlikely that a claim for benefit will be successful. If you have savings over £16k you will get nothing until your savings have gone.

elfraed

March 21st, 2009 9:21am Report this comment

The economy has failed, not government.
Yet, it sounds as though the enfeebled shall be voting for which species of political vulture to dine on its carcass.
In the States, lax oversight contributed to the sudden revelations of insolvency, but the crash was/is still coming irregardless of party politics.