Conference seems a long time ago.  I remember travelling home on the train sitting next to David Willets and Cheryl Gillian, full of optimism.  A great Conference.  Never underestimating the task ahead, key was that everything was pointing in the right direction.  George Osborne had just enjoyed the Conference of his life and delivered a speech which tackled the big issues and underlined the economic competence of the Conservatives.  David Cameron had delivered a barn storming speech which left all with hope, (yes that great word that Obama anchors campaigns around), that we were en route to a better future.  This was off the back of a dreadful Labour Conference that saw a less than half empty hall wearily trudge through a week of depression, until Lord Mandelson rallied their spirits, (and his future career prospects), with throws of inspiring rhetoric for the Labour faithful to finally have a sliver of hope themselves.

Things are bleak for this Government.  Indeed, for the country.

And yet…..opinion polls are throwing up mixed results.  Trending is that Conservatives are not dominating as much as we should be.  Local council by election results, are ‘disappointing’,(in the words of ConservativeHome’s Jonathan Isaby.  Iain Dale also asks the question why by-election results are not going our way).  Yes, there are always localised reasons at play at by-election results, and their impact can never be dismissed.  But we are not dominating.  Opinion polls are patchy and not as inspiring as the recent 17% lead polls.  Tim Montgomerie on ConservativeHome has alluded to a drop in Conservatives support post Lisbon Treaty ‘U-Turn’.  Many seem to agree with that sentiment on that blog site.  But there is more to it than Europe.

What is fundamentally true is that the Conservatives have so much ammunition at their disposal, the question why polls are not moving stronger in our favour is a valid one to ask!

Consider what’s happening around us…..

  -           The economy.  First into recession, last out.  And the deepest recession in Europe.  We hurtle catastrophically towards a £1 trillion debt that our children will still be paying off in years to come. Brown has got away with the biggest lie in Political history.  That lie?  That debt has been built up because Brown states he was saving the UK from recession, (actually he would say saving the world from recession but scrub that).  That’s like Tiger Woods saying he had 10 birdies in a round and his wife believing he was talking about Golf!   Brown was building debt way before this recession even started.  In the good times he was spending like a manic gambler at the roulette table, hoping the ball will end on black.  In the words of the IMF:  ‘Imbalances and balance sheet strains had emerged even before the recent global shocks triggered a sharp decline in economic activity’.  ie we were heading into recession and spending too heavily BEFORE the Global shocks took place. 

 -           Unemployment heads towards 3 million, (that’s by official figures), unofficially claims of 6 million seem more accurate.  That’s people’s lives wrecked, on hold, dignity stripped.  Benefits and dependency culture set in.

 -           Class War.  Entrepreneurs discouraged.  Bankers bashed.  Top talent packing their bags to work abroad as UK thumps those very people who can bring us out of slump, create jobs for others and generate tax revenues, pummelled to the ground, with more ferocity than an uppercut from Mike Tyson in his prime, by punitive tax rates.  50% for top earners.  40% threshold frozen.  More on NI.  VAT back up 2.5%.  Penalties on companies that reward bankers who make money, (the very people we need to save and keep in this country, not incentivise to work and benefit New York’s Stock Exchange). 

 -           The Unions start to flex their muscles.  Just as the nation was free from the strangulation and choking hold of the Unions, like in ‘The Shining’ ‘They’re back’!  Strikes on the increase, Union militancy.  Bob Crow back on the telly chanting his monotone messages like a failed XFactor auditionee.  The Post Office, on the brink of collapse, wont modernise, cancerously pumping money into its bottomless pension pit, faced by striking members, and growing competition.  The RMT, getting the Tube drivers out on strike, more often than we enjoy a boiling hot summers day that we can take off our shirts and bathe!  And that comes before the pending winter of discontent as Unions rally against Darling’s 1% pay rise limit for public sector workers.  Who will be out striking first?  Rush down Ladbroke’s and place your bet tonight. 

 -           Our population continues on its inextricable path towards 70 million.  Immigration remains unchecked.  Asylum seekers lost amongst the population.  Our open borders burden the UK putting huge strain on over stretched public services, with the NHS groaning under the weight, school classes getting bigger, new houses being built on green belt, predicted power shortages for the years ahead as we don’t have the power stations to support our surging nation, public transport wheezing and roads at a standstill. 

 -           We are in the midst of a deeply unpopular war.  Over 200 brave soldiers have been returned home in a coffin.  Debates over strategy have been rife.  More concerning than that, real questions over the equipment troops are issued with and the lack of protection eg helicopters, have undermined this Government.  There could not be a more inept and ‘uncaring’ Defence Minister in Bob Ainsworth.

 -           The Iraq enquiry is rapidly tarnishing the reputation of ‘Labour’s greatest Leader’, Tony Blair.  We hear daily about the lack of credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction and the inability of Saddam Hussein’s regime to produce workable ones.  Coded language comes from the Iraq Enquiry that George W Bush wanted a hard line and pushed Blair into it.  Bliar indeed.

 -           A House of Commons with politicians so morally corrupt that make even Ronnie Biggs look respectable.  Yes, you will retort that Conservative politicians have been just as bad.  BUT the Government have been poor in taking any lead in cleaning up this sh*tstorm of a mess.  Cameron, has pushed Brown all the way.  Even this week we hear of Prime Minister Brown repaying £500 for painting a shed!

 -           Europe.  The continued enslavery of the British people continues to the faceless unelected bureaucrats of Europe.  Now we have the dreaded Lisbon Treaty with the instantly forgettable, but powerful. President of the European Union, (Herman Van Rompuy), and Foreign Minister, Cathy Ashton, (a Brit who was as vocal in British politics as Sooty was to Children’s TV!).  Blair and Brown promised a referendum for the British people but it never ever emerged.  Yes, Cameron took some hammering on his so called U-turn but a referendum on a Treaty in force is daft.  Another referendum on whether we have given too much power away, hell yes.  The blame for our European ills lay firmly at Brown’s door.

-           Education, Education, Education.  Blair’s famous pledge that education was his first, second and third priority.  A memorable catch phrase that was almost Turette’s by nature, proved to be as reliable as Amy Whinehouse sticking to drinking coke in a bar all night !   Education failures rack up.  50,000 A-level students miss out on a place at university.  This year 52,000 more people applied to University but only 13,000 extra places were made available.  The number of young people not in employment, education or training (Neet) has leapt by more than 100,000 in the past year.  Government statistics show there are now almost 960,000 16- to 24-year-old Neets in England, more than 230,000 of whom are aged between 16 and 18.  Oh and the flagship policy, SAT’s…teachers aim to boycott them next year!

-           A big brother state that worms its way into every aspect of our lives.  Want to help out at your local school?  Drive friends Children to their Cubs or Girl Guides?  Got to be checked on the anti paedophile register first.

Quite literally I could go on all night listing failure after failure after failure.

Fertile ground to be in Opposition.  Too much to choose from.  Should be Christmas all year round.

Opinion polls should be absolutely hammering Labour for their incompetence.  Criminal incompetence.  But they aren’t.

Some recent polls have put the difference between Conservatives to 10% difference.  Labour commanding a mid – late 20’s position.

Who the hell is being polled?  Who is supporting this shower?

As we head towards an election, the most important in many a lifetime, Conservatives need to open up the gap and generate clear blue water.  This is the ‘Schumacher’ moment when we need to be so far ahead of the field, we need to be lapping not only the back markers but coming up to lap the entire field.  Schumacher never slowed up.  He pummelled his fellow drivers into the ground.  As we must do now.

So what is wrong?

Why are we not opening up more of a gap?

Many commentators say that Conservatives Agenda is not yet bought by the British people.  Voters don’t quite trust us as yet.  They don’t understand what we stand for.  They like nice Mr Cameron but don’t have a feel for what he would do.

Much of this can be brought out in the wash in an election campaign say Conservative campaign team leaders.  Maybe…in them we have to trust!  We are not privy to the campaign they intend to use to convince the people.

But one suggestion I would impart onto David, Eric, George & William is that the key word around the campaigns table must be emotion.  Emotion is what politics lacks.  Emotion means getting personal.  It means relating to the ordinary person in the street.  Emotion creates and bonds loyalty and trust.

Politics today is too focused on debating statistics or policies.  As we all fight the election in the middle ground, choices get confused, differences misunderstood by the public, whose political antenna is not as attuned as Westminster politicians think.  I say we all fight in the middle, the key word is that all parties want to be perceived as in the middle, to attract the largest number of voters.  Matters not that policies may be more left or right wing, the centre is where we all will fight, (rightly or wrongly in your opinion).

Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit had their finger on the pulse of the people.  They spoke in terms that people understood.  They personalised and humanised issues that people could relate to.  Politicians are forgetting that, just as any film director tries to do, it is about getting someone to believe in what they see.  Emotion is created by personalising issues.  Remember when Margaret Thatcher turned complex economic issues into the language that people understood.  On spending she equated the state to the family.  We cannot spend what we cannot afford.  When we are at home, if we cannot afford it, we save and then we can afford it, we buy it.  Simple language but the people loved it.  The housewife spoke!  Powerful and it resonated.  More so that today’s debate which quotes pure stats and percentages that Joe public does not understand…or will try to understand as they worry whether Joe, Stacey or Olly will win the XFactor!

Unemployment is not about a statistic of 3 million people it is about Mr Jones, who worked all his life, bought his own council house, can’t find work, wife fallen ill, daughter can’t afford University, a man depressed, lost his dignity but wants better for his family…and is fighting to earn money.  In him we respect and want to see him do well.

The health service is not about dirty corridors, increases in disease, rising cancer death rates, it is about Mrs Hughes, a mother who has a family of 3 beautiful daughters, husband died at war, who is diagnosed with cancer and facing life’s hardest choices.  How do we help her and her daughters.

Afghanistan is so more more than a statistic 200 dead, it is about John, a brave soldier on the front line who died by roadside ambush, a wife pregnant with his unborn daughter, a family torn apart.  How we help that family of a man who gave the ultimate sacrifice for all of us.

Public debt is not about a figure of trillion pounds.  It is about Mary, who is struggling to pay her mortgage, close to repossession, working for a company that is struggling to get credit, that is laying off workers, (her friends).

Violent crime is not about a percentage.  It is about 8 year old Sarah, whose father went to pick up a takeaway for the family, but never came home as youths taunted him, attacked him and used a knife in a savage unprovoked attack.

David Cameron is a thoroughly decent man.  Post the tragic death of Ivan the public saw a different side to the Politician.  They related to him.  A family man.  A bereaving dad.  A loving husband.  And they could associate with that.  We see less of the personal side of David of late.  That loving family man, the dad, the husband, has been less visible.   The emotion of the man not emanating out.

Some may shout this down.

But just sit and watch ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ or ‘The X Factor’.  Watch how contestant’s are introduced.  How emotion is used to get that tear welling up in your eye.  Get that lump in your throat.  Make you leap our your chair and vote for them because, for that moment in time, ‘they’ matter to you more than anything else.  You support them.  You don’t care paying a phone vote because you feel better in yourself for supporting them.  You feel you are making a difference.  We can all point to stories used on shows like this.  The daughter who was told by her dad to audition for Britain’s Got Talent by a dad, who died suddenly and she is now doing this for him.  Who did not feel emotional.

So, David Cameron, more than anyone, realises the election is not in the bag.  By a long way.  It’s not over until he faces the cameras on election night after Gordon Brown has conceded defeat.

So dangerous waters lie ahead.  Gordon Brown has been getting more confident of late.  The last two PMQ’s have been his strongest for a long time.  Iain Dale even concluded that Brown beat Cameron in one of them.  Unheard of!  The economy will start to turn round in the new year.  Brown must sit by the fire at No.10 with Sarah over a mug of hot chocolate and array of biscuits, (as he can’t decide his favourite), and really laugh.  ‘Sarah, look at how bad a mess everything is and yet look at those polls.  We are only 10% behind!  Even with the state of the UK as it is the Conservatives can’t kill us off.  We could still win this Sarah!’…..as she forlornly and adoringly looks into the eye of her ‘hero’! 

And things can change in politics.  The nightmare scenario still exists.  What if Gordon Brown steps down early next year?  A new Labour Leader emerges, be it Johnson, Miliband, Purnell or Mandelson, and starts to distance themselves from Brown’s policies, as the economy picks up and as they benefit from a honeymoon period in the polls, that any new leader always does.

Could Labour win the next election.  Yes.  The public may do a 1992 and shock and keep an ‘unpopular’ Government in.  Better the devil you know.  ‘Oh well things are getting better let’s stick with Labour’.

Worst case, as Ken Clarke would say, a hung Parliament.  The best of no worlds.

Election loss.  Conservatives would tear themselves apart.  Many keeping their lips sealed now for Party Unity would feel empowered to state their case.  Something none of us ever wants to see ever again.

So let’s see more spark to our Opposition.  Let’s see our front bench hammering the Government ever harder.  Let’s see emotion, personalisation and humanisation used to bring issues closer to the public, so they understand what really is going on.

We cannot afford, as a Great Nation, to see Labour in again.

We all want this dreadful recession to end.  Many of us have friends who have been affected by this harsh recession be it, losing their job, falling into debt, having their house re-possessed, destroying their marriage/family life, through the stress of potential redundancy / working longer hours to hold their jobs.  The sooner we see ‘green shoots’ the better.  Alastair Darling has been more encouraging lately as he sees those green shoots emerging and that the UK is back into recovery mode.  He has to be positive to talk up the markets but economic data paints a darker picture and one which shows that whilst the economy is fighting to get out of recession, the dangers of a double dip recession are serious and real.  For that we must all be worried.

Politics is currently in suspended animation.  Everything on hold until the next election.  The Government are deferring key decisions until after that election.  Tough medicine the economy needs NOW is being held until post election….why?….because tough decisions are unpopular and this Government wants to win the next election.  The lack of decision making, total procrastination at the heart of Government is damaging the economy still further.  Let’s have that election today and get on with the job of getting people back to work and this great economy on its path to recovery and prosperity.

Key economic data yesterday painted a worrying position.  Government debt is far worse than expected and spiralling.  Government revenue received through tax receipts is dropping like a stone whilst benefit payments are shooting skywards.  Bank lending, seen as key to small businesses rejuvenation, is again falling.  Banks, several of which this Government now own, (ie we do as British tax payers), are failing in their duty and stated promises to push bank lending again and get the economy moving.  These stated goals are not being implemented and not evident.  Many small businesses are delaying on investment decisions because they cannot get bank funding, (we heard that story from a recent post by Russ Rec).  In the meantime, whilst banks don’t lend, they are grabbing with the other hand.  Credit card rates are rising.  Bank charges reappearing for minuscule errors.  Private household debt the highest of European nations.

Despite the abuse Gordon Brown threw at David Cameron over the Conservatives Spending plans ie branding DC Mr 10%, we now see from leaked Treasury papers that the Government are planning 10% across the board cuts.  Hypocritical is one word Mr Brown!  The politics of dishonesty is never attractive and this electorate have long memories.

Lets make no bones about it, tough spending cuts HAVE to follow.  For the sake of the economy.  Whoever wins power.  Cuts will involved public sector job losses, hence adding to the unemployment queues.  But if we don’t, we are in danger of having to go cap in hand to the IMF for a bail out by them….again!.  They will impose tough conditions to the bail out and cuts could be even more savage.  We all know that UK PLC is in danger of losing its ‘AAA’ credit rating on the world stage. 

Any public sector losses, especially job losses/pay freezes, WILL see the Unions swing into action.  A winter of discontent beckons.  The Post Office have balloted members for strike action.  The Tube Drivers have been striking this year already.  We can expect the nation grinding to a halt at various stages this winter due to Union protests, hence damaging the recovery.  Power workers have threatened walkouts, hence the return of black outs is a real possibility.

So a lot can undermine our economy.  Double dip recession is a real possibility.  But lets take a closer look at the stats……

Our debt situation is horrific.  No over word describes the cancerous, spiralling debt this country is storing up for our children.  Yesterday we learn that bankrupt Britain borrowed £6,000 every second last month.  The Government amassed a humongous £16.1 billion debt in one month…the largest on record.  This was a 63% increase borrowed in the same month last year.  The Government has borrowed £63.5bn since the beginning of the financial year in April.  Britain’s overall debt now stands at £800bn—heading for the £1 trillion mark. That is frightening.

Our nation’s finances are out of control.  This is shameful mismanagement of the economy on a criminal scale.  Quantative easing draws mixed responses from the world’s best economists and whether it is having any effect on the UK economy.  The IMF even stated that they could not assess whether any impact had been made by pumping a huge amount into the economy.  Bank of England data shows that broad money supply grew by just 0.1% in August, after a 1.3% increase in July.  This dragged the annual growth rate down to 12.6% from 14.4% a month earlier, hence demonstrating quantative easing’s limited/zero effect.

It now looks like we are on track to amass a debt of over £200bn by the end of the fiscal year, some predicting an overshoot of Govt Spending targets by £50bn.

With the economy still seeing dire unemployment figures, predictably total tax take over the first five months of the year to the end of August was 11.4% lower compared to the first 5 months of last year, while benefits spending was 9.5% higher.

Net lending to British businesses also fell in July, (by the largest amount since records began).  it fell by £15.5bn, even more sharply than the £3.6bn drop in June.  Why?  Companies paid back more than banks lent.  The figures for August are projected to worsen.

We cannot gamble our nation”s future any more….for the sake of our children let’s have that election now and let the people decide.

Guest Blog from John Laity on the hot topic of the day….unemployment.  Over to you John………..

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UK unemployment rises to 2.47m

Britain’s jobless rate climbed to its highest in almost 13 years in July and while there were signs the pace of layoffs may be slowing, analysts cautioned dole queues could lengthen for some time yet.

The Office for National Statistics said the number of Britons out of work on the internationally-comparable ILO (International Labour Organisation) measure rose by 210,000 to 2.47 million in the three months to July. That took the jobless rate up to 7.9 per cent, the highest since November 1996.

Unemployment is a lagging indicator and both analysts and policymakers have warned it would continue to rise even as the economy comes out of the worst recession in decades.

Some expect the jobless total to hit three million next year, bad timing for Labour and an election by June.

The number of people claiming unemployment benefit rose by 24,400 to 1.607 million in August, the highest since May 1997.
…So expect more Labour cuts than they can admit to !

Today we learn more of the shocking state of our nation.  We are in one hell of an economic mess.  It’s time for radical thinking and ‘workfare’.

First up, official figures show that the number of 18-24 year olds Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) have hit a record highof 835,000, (equivalent to 17.6% of that age bracket).  Graduates, fresh from their studies, find themselves winding their way in a queue for state benefits.  Put yourself in the shoes of a graduate.  Just finished your Degree, the purpose mainly being to give you a head start in life, and you have no where to go.  The wasting of a generation of talent.

This follows hot on the heels of a report by Policy Exchange think-tank which puts the actual number of Britons out of work and living on benefits at 5.96 million – (note Official Government figures state 2.44 million).  The UK is creating a generation dependent on welfare.

Policy Exchange calculates the figure based on the number of those of working age living off the following state benefits:

• 1.58 million on Jobseeker’s Allowance
• 2.6 million on incapacity benefit and the new Employment and Support Allowance
• 736,000 on lone parents’ benefits
• 400,000 on carers’ benefits
• 363,000 on disability benefits
• 95,000 on bereavement benefits
• 182,000 on other income-related benefits 

So this begs the question about the cost to us tax payers and the value society receives from paying blanket benefits.  The cost of the benefits system has risen from £93 billion in 1997 to £193 billion today.  That is a huge tax burden on the system especially given the cancerous debt burden which is spiralling daily.

So, it is time for Conservatives to think the unthinkable and enter a period of blue sky thinking over welfare and particularly unemployment benefits.

We are facing an unparalleled National Debt and hence a new approach is needed.  Workfare, whilst derided by the Left, should be on the table for debate today.  What is workfare?…. well…..it’s a scheme in which the long-term unemployed, in return for welfare payments, are required to undergo either skills training or work, in jobs supported by state subsidy or in community-service activities.  One of the most successful ‘workfare’ schemes has been employed in the USA, in the State of Wisconsin.  Workfare was the key principle behind the 1996 US federal welfare reforms which, with the threat of a loss of benefits after two years, led to a sharp drop in welfare recipients.  Welfare to work programs aim to break the cycle of poverty where welfare dependence can become a way of life.

So, Conservatives should include a Manifesto promise to introduce a system which obligates able – bodied unemployed people, not in re-training schemes, who are looking to work, to undertake work that is beneficial to their community in return for unemployment benefits.   This would be popular for two reason.  Firstly, taxpayers may feel that they get “more value for their welfare pounds” when they observe welfare recipients working for benefits.  This helps add to the political popularity of such schemes.  Secondly, putting unemployed people into a workplace-like environment attempts to address the argument that one of the biggest barriers to employment for the long-term unemployed is their lack of recent workforce experience.

There is plenty wrong with this country and where ‘workfare’ help could be utilised.  Imagine, if companies or the public sector were presented with extra workforce, at no extra charge to them, to help them in their business life.  Consider these ares for example:

-  Call Centres.  Rather than outsource all the call centre work to India and other Asian countries, why not staffed via workfare?

-  Schools:  Help at schools, after passing background checks, classroom help, help with PE, cleaning, making school dinners etc.

-  Manufacturing Industry:  Why not provide a stream of workers in our manufacturing plants.  This ‘free labour’ would help some of the struggling industries like the car industry.

-  Post Office:  Again, if the Post Office is to be privatised, why not utilise workfare for Post deliverers.

-  Hospitals:  Help with general work around the hospital eg the Hospital Superbug MRSA is due to dirty wards, why not have more cleaners in the hospitals instead of people sitting at home

-  Building:  with a boom in building contracts eg Olympics, more manual labour

-  Civil Service:  With so much bureaucracy, plenty of paperwork could be finally completed

-  Street cleaning & refuse collection:  (why should council pay full time salaries when this could be a workfare role?)

-  Help in Supermarkets/retail:  Be it Customer Service or managerial.

This is but a few examples of where labour can be directed.  Yes some is skilled, some unskilled.  But there are plenty of areas of opportunity to get Briatin working and ensure welfare dependence does not creep in.

To be successful a ‘workfare’ system has to include a number of elements:

- Applies to all able bodied unemployed

- Has time limits  (eg people need time to apply for new jobs etc and therefore workfare may exist for 4 days a week work or maybe all afternoons, as mornings are spent job seeking.

- Possesses Tiers of payments.  For those working more hours, they reach a higher level of state unemployment benefits.  Those who choose to work less or not participate get lower benefits.

-  Those who wish to re-train or get extra skills, receive a lower benefit as the state invests more into their future.  But this can be buttressed back up by workfare projects. 

- After 2 years, an individual would no longer receive state support.  Hence, they have the motivation to seek work, which may involve retraining. 

These ideas, obviously are fairly radical for the UK.  Again, desperate times, call for stronger measures.  We are faced with an unparalleled debt.  We have to maintain a work ethic amongst the population.  We have to ensure that the UK does not embed a welfare dependency culture.

Second in our series of grassroots bloggers is Sue Doughty.  Sue has been an active contributor to the comments thread on both this site and TBB’s Facebook page.  She is incredibly sharp, perceptive and always has a valuable insight into latest issues.  It is therefore a real pleasure that she has provided this blogpiece today.  Thanks Sue. 

The world of work is fading away or changed by Sue Doughty
 
It used to be that people over 60 for women and 65 for men were not allowed to be employed. This was brought in to make way for school leavers to get jobs (because there had been a Labour government who had destroyed all the jobs as is their way) but before that people had the right to work for as long as they wanted to. Now we see people of pensionable age working to be able to eat and pay mortgages and school fees, tuition fees etc, while young people are finding avenues to employment blocked. What to do? It would be wrong to bring back the unemployment in older years because people are healthier now and their pensions and savings have gone.

There has to be a way of encouraging the creation of starter jobs.
 
At present unemployed young people with only ten GCSEs and 2 A levels have to settle for cleaning council buildings, flats and offices, care homes; or working shelf stacking or on the checkout in shops. But those shops will close as shopping trips make way for internet and phone shopping in the face of the flu epidemic.

Apprenticeships made way for Modern Apprenticeships, which were seen as not worth doing because you get pocket money pay and no qualifications to put in your CV. They were actually detrimental to your CV.

There are proper apprenticeships on offer now but few and far between. They are hard to find and getting to the assessment venue is a challenge of initiative and parents disposable income for transport – again in a trading estate with no usable, same day, public transport access.

So this government has again tilted the playing field in favour of the middle classes, that is to say those young people with caring parents, while penalising those families fiscally tooth and nail.

We need this country to be creating jobs in manufacturing. It is time the old Labour mantra that we don’t need to make things any more because we can import whatever we want went by the board. They said that we don’t need to have food production in these islands because it is cheaper to import but now we know they meant only from the EU. I note that coffee; tea, oranges, mangoes, springcrop potatoes, bananas, rice and many other basic foodstuffs do not come from within the EU but from the Commonwealth.

We are seeing an end to crop picking gangs advertising vacancies only in the language of the gangmaster and often only in the country of the gangmaster but the end is not complete and not good enough.

We need old people to be allowed to keep earning, and we need them to pass on their skills and ethics. We also need job vacancies to open up for this lost generation. We need to be able to compete with China. To achieve this a whole load of working regulations need to be weeded out of our statute book so that it is easier to employ people in this country.  

The 1930′s unemployment lines… fast becoming replicated in the late Noughties!

Reflect on this….3 months.

March

April

May

……..Some 281,000 people lost their jobs. That is the personal cost of this recession.  Families under pressure now to pay rent, mortgages, feed families.  The social cost of pressure on families and the stress and humiliation of feeling worthless as work is so far and few between.   This is the biggest quarterly rise in unemployment since records began.  And Gordon Brown has the sheer audacity to call the Conservatives ‘the Party of Unemployment’.  What a hypocrite.

No doubt at PMQ’s Brown will be attacking the Conservatives and throwing about his ‘childsplay’ slogans….but the time has come that he needs to take this seriously.  This economic mismanagement is no slogan or insult to throw at the Tories.  This is affecting people’s lives and the morale and cultural fabric of this country.  Brown is doing nothing….just as he has the blood of the soldiers of Afghanistan on his hands, he has the tears of the unemployed on his shoulder!

Our economy really is in a mess….we deserve truth from Brown.  Public spending will have to be cut, deficit reduced, confidence installed in this faltering economy which really does stand on the edge of a double dip recession.  We are hanging on by our fingernails.  But what is being done.  Labour Party zealots may hate the truth but the Bank of England has temporarily haled Quantative easing, the credit cards have been cut up so no big spending plans.  We can see from a blog article earlier this week on TBB that lending to businesses is not getting through and is in decline….so Gordon, where is the oil to lubricate the engine of this economy?  What are your Government doing?  Pray do tell as we all sit here counting our pennies, fearing for our jobs.  Yes jobs, becoming rarer than red squirrels in our woods!

The unemployment rate now stands at 7.6% which is much higher than forecast.  And these are the Government’s Official Figures which we know have so many twists and turns and caveats that the actual figure is far higher.

Officially we have 2.38 million unemployed….this figure will smash 3 million this year.  Why will the figures smash 3 million?  Britain and this Government have been heavily reliant on the public sector, retail, housing and finance as sources of employment growth, but the money is no longer there to artificially balloon these sectors.

Meanwhile the number of employed people also fell at a record rate, with 269,000 fewer people in work dropping the employment rate down to 72.9%.

Now consider this.  To add to these figures:  Lloyds Baking Group is cutting 2,100 workers; Diaego is cutting 900 jobs;  Corus job cuts could equal 5,000.  More and more will be unemployment….the acceleration continues.

The number of people claiming job seekers allowance stands at 1.56 million, the worst since Labour came to power.   NB That is a 16 month in a row rise and over 700,000 higher than a year ago.

What is scary is that Graduates are just entering the job market, to face the prospect of Unemployment after studying hard for 3/4 years and getting themselves into debt to the average of £15,000 – £18,000.  These Graduates, in their prime, will be thrown to the scrapheap….or take jobs in supermarkets until they can find commensurate work to their abilities.   Youth unemployment has jumped to a 16-year high of 726,000 after a quarterly rise of 95,000, while the number of people out of work for longer than a year rose by 46,000 to 528,000, the highest for 11 years.

One thing is very true, if Gordon Brown was employed in the Private Sector, he would have been handed his P45 a long time ago for crass mismanagement and Gross Misconduct for lying!