the tories aren’t working
I’ve waited for years since the famous/infamous 1979 tory campaign poster portrayal of the Labour Party’s dole queue, to invoke my own version. And with almost (in reality) 3 million people filling up our job centres and social security offices you’d think I’d have the perfect opportunity but my heart’s just not in it I’m afraid.
The overall jobless figures disguise two very different markets. The public sector, bloated beyond the comprehension of Ernie Bevan and his fellow founding fathers, is where some of the most painful experiences are to be found: 48% of public sector employers say they’ll be making significant and imminent redundancies. It’s going to hurt many. And whilst the private sector will pick up some of the slack, up to 75% of those made redundant have to face the prospect of long-term and continued unemployment. So much for Georgie-Boy’s silly and naive claim ‘that if the state cuts back, private business will pick up the slack’. Never has one sentence shown a man so clearly for his stupidly and ignorance. What he perhaps fails to point out is that unemployment was falling when the tories came to power and has been shooting up ever since.
But my heart’s not in it as, in truth, much of the previous Labour administration’s public sector spending was unsustainable and Ed Ball’s differences of opinions with his counterpart differ by only one digit – plan A, B or C constitutes very little difference in anything substantial. We all know the austerity cutbacks would have to take place irrespective of the administration’s colour. If we haven’t yet realised there’s been a fundamental change in the world’s manufacturing and trading conditions then our heads have been well and truly in the sand for many years.
Many (but not all) unskilled and low-skilled Britons simply don’t want similarly skilled jobs and, due to an often ineffectual and unrealistic educational system, are not qualified or relevant to them in any count. Ironically, since the recession began, the size of the foreign workforce has grown. As we’ve grown into a post-industrial, post manufacturing (post-colonial?) economy, British goods have become internationally uncompetitive on price and quality yet we still expect premium wages and payment, at all levels from the shop floor to the boardroom. We wrongly and arrogantly assume we can buy bargains from abroad whilst selling luxuries at a premium. It’s an outdated fantasy and unemployment is here to stay. Sorry, but there it is.
