DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived Cleggeron era

This benefits drive isn't to get job-seekers into non-existent jobs, but to get people on other allowances (e.g. incapacity, disability) onto job-seekers, because it's cheaper.

In the same way that 'local authority' replaced 'council'?

But they haven't! Long-term unemployment fell to 1% of the labour force!

sounds extremely unlikely -- depends how you calculate 'labour force' really

Basically excludes everyone not on job-seeker's allowance in the UK and therefore is nothing like the actual long-term unemployment level.

Yeah come on, they've been fiddling the "unemployment" figures for years, before 1997 even.

Thatcher invented the "fiddle". Not much point in doing it before then.

The labour force is a standard definition comparable across countries set by the International Labour Organisation, with the data collected on a comparable basis, I think, since 1973. It's the non-fiddleable bit.

And Onimo, it doesn't exclude people not on jobseekers' allowance. That definition includes students looking for part-time work, people whose savings are too high etc

And Onimo, it doesn't exclude people not on jobseekers' allowance. That definition includes students looking for part-time work, people whose savings are too high etc

OK let's just say it excludes every single person I know who's been unemployed for more than a year, and that's a lot of people.

There is a separate issue of incapacity benefit, which the cuntalition are trying to somehow blur with unemployment with their talk of "out of work benefits".

what this country really needs is more mentally unstable people working at fried chicken shops

There is a separate issue of incapacity benefit, which the cuntalition are trying to somehow blur with unemployment with their talk of "out of work benefits".

― Citizen Smith (Jamie T Smith), Thursday, September 16, 2010 11:10 AM (33 seconds ago) Bookmark

ok, but this is an issue, really -- i'm guessing they aren't counted as part of the potential labour force? im imagining a proportion of them probably are capable of working but the stats look better if they are classified incapable. or is that cuntilition talk?

I don't know why people have a problem with the idea that if you had a government whose stated policy goals were full employment and reducing structural unemployment, who were in power at a time of sustained economic growth, actually reduced unemployment quite a lot. I mean, what would you expect to happen? Don't get it. Doesn't fit the neo-liberal class traitors narrative?

But this lot greet the announcement that there are still about 2.5 million people looking for jobs that can't get them with a succession of attacks on the lazy undeserving poor, and an economically illiterate focus on micro work incentives when there are NO FUCKING JOBS. Cunts.

xpost No, that is a reasonable point, too, imo

lol Forgemasters:

Angela Smith, Labour MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, said Andrew Cook had "boasted" of being the Conservative's largest donor in Yorkshire and yet is registered as a resident on the island of Guernsey.

real talk itt, enjoyin it

there are NO FUCKING JOBS. Cunts.

^^^two key points right there.

I don't know why people have a problem with the idea that if you had a government whose stated policy goals were full employment and reducing structural unemployment, who were in power at a time of sustained economic growth, actually reduced unemployment quite a lot. I mean, what would you expect to happen? Don't get it. Doesn't fit the neo-liberal class traitors narrative?

New Labour stopped talking about full employment after 1997 from what I can see. Did they reduce employment quite a lot? Yes. Did they reduce it to 1% of the total workforce? No.

Reduce UNemployment. Ahem.

Not true - http://www.conservatives.com/Get_involved/Jobs.aspx

Oh wait that was supposed to be a witty riposte to onimo - failed on all fronts...

New Labour stopped talking about full employment after 1997

No. I have to do some work, so I can't google it now, but you'll find it in every budget, IIRC.

Did they reduce it to 1% of the total workforce?

That was long-term unemployment, ie over 12 months. Unemployment was, what 4-5%? Those are the Eurostat figures, based on the ILO Labour Force Data. Looks legit to me. There is obviously the dumping people on incapacity argument, too, so it is more complicated, yeah. But my basic point stands that Clegg is talking shit, and it doesn't matter what he does to work incentives (and maybe yeah, leaving people in even worse utter poverty might make them try a bit harder, but that doesn't make it right) if he's going to lay off three-quarters of a million public-sector workers.

Including my wife.

To be fair, the window for pie-in-the-sky bullshit talk is closing rapidly so Cameron and Clegg might as well get it in while they still can.

New Labour stopped talking about full employment after 1997

No. I have to do some work, so I can't google it now, but you'll find it in every budget, IIRC.

I do remember Neil Kinnock discussing (rather than admitting) that it wasn't going to be possible in the future.

I remember reading in n+1 recently that in the US '"full employment" is defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as 4.9 percent unemployment.' Is the UK's def'n of 'full employment' similar?

(the idea, apparently, is that full employment is "just enough unemployment for wage demands not to drive up inflation", rather than everyone capable of working being in work)

ireland had 'full employment' at 4%, i tihnk it was to allow for the fact that there were always going to be people between jobs.

course, they had long term disability, training schemes etc etc to buff up those figures too

Actual full employment would never happen for the reason NV mentions upthread - full employment -> rising wage costs -> businesses make less money -> people get laid off.

at a certain concentration the alcohol poisons the yeast

Would never happen under current economic system. Which amounts to something like "will never happen".

Thought this stuff through while watching Quadrophenia one time - that cheery, maybe imaginary 60s landscape where it didn't matter if you got fired from your job because you could walk into the firm next door and get a new one, that's a fantasy land only inhabited for real by senior executives, high-ups in banking, MPs, those kind of bastards.

walked across the road from dunnes to tescos once tbf

that's not actually true, if u got fired from senior mgmt at a merchant bank it'd be pretty difficult to get an equiv position elsewhere

not saying, just saying

Sorry, forgot that "being paid off a small fortune for being fucking incompetent, patted on the head and sent on your way to fuck up something in the public/voluntary sector" wasn't the same as being "fired"

it's a hard knock life

Actual full employment would never happen for the reason NV mentions upthread - full employment -> rising wage costs -> businesses make less money -> people get laid off.

That's what's called a threat. Didn't happen with the minimum wage, did it?

It's not a thread because the Tories or the Orange Tory Wednesdays will never come out and say "we are against full employment". It's more of a fact of Capitalist economics and one that they have to keep quiet on otherwise what price their "get these TV-watching chancers off the dole" rhetoric?

"not a threat" rather

hard to say. lot of sub-minimum wage labour out there.

xpost

It's more of a fact of Capitalist economics and one that they have to keep quiet on otherwise what price their "get these TV-watching chancers off the dole" rhetoric?

Of course, they don't give a fuck about people being out of work, they give a fuck at having to pay for them

Spiralling of peasant wages in 14th century England after a third of the population died of plague is instructive here. After a few years of the cheeky bastards wandering the country in search of better paying employment the government had to step in and ban people from leaving their home area.

My guess is that given the choice again the Lib Dems would not go into this coalition. The problem isn't so much not thinking it through, as some implications taking time to emerge into general consciousness.

I'm amazed at the amount of think-pieces in the political press that discuss the next election as though a similar hung parliament is highly probable (in some cases almost as though it's inevitable). They're all talking about how the Lib Dems position themselves, will they stay with the Tories or could they go with Labour next time etc. In fact hung parliaments are unusual and with the Lib Dems leftish supporters deserting in droves a hung parliament is even less likely than normal. How the Lib Dems position themselves is likely to be pretty irrelevant.

Two scenarios seem likely to me:

- The government is perceived as having done well and is at least mildly popular. The likeliest outcome - a Tory overall majority, probably clear from the polls in advance. The Conservative's need to be nice to the Lib Dems will evaporate and the Tory right will re-emerge. People who are left-leaning but previously voted Lib Dem will hold them responsible. Right leaning Lib Dems are likely to drift to a renascent Tory party. Result - Lib Dems a tiny rump and its leadership shorn of influence. Back to the wilderness.

- the government is unpopular and both parties blamed. Likely outcome - a Labour overall majority. The electorate will be hostile to a Lib Dem party seen as sustaining an unpopular government. The Labour will want nothing to do with them. Only convinced right-wingers are likely to stay behind the coalition, and they will tend to be Tories. Result - Lib Dems a tiny rump etc etc.

Faced with this logic I expect Clegg and some other senior Lib Dems to join the Conservative party in return for promises of safe seats at the next election. I can't see how else they will sustain political careers.

I'm not saying other outcomes are not possible - I don't have a crystal ball. But these seem the likliest outcomes to me, and either way the prognosis for the Lib Dems is pretty disastrous.

Faced with this logic I expect Clegg and some other senior Lib Dems to join the Conservative party in return for promises of safe seats at the next election. I can't see how else they will sustain political careers.

same way members of the liberal democrats have sustained their careers forever. they've always been a joke/tiny rump with zero influence (via fptp). fail to see why a zinging at the next election (which i agree is inevitable via significant loss of voters not just fptp) would change that.

Having had a taste of being in government some of the senior Party figures mightn't fancy another 90-odd years in the wilderness.

If I were a LibDem MP with minimal connection or empathy with the government, I'd spend the next four years ensuring I was doing as much for my constituency as visibly as possible. Difficult to do that with no money, admittedly.

4 years is probably enough time to hand-write an "I'm sorry" card to every constituent.

i don't know that the outcome of the next election will necessarily be as strong a swing to either side as frankiemachine claims is likely tbh

No, old habits die hard too. For all the Lib Dems lose their anti-Tory votes they might well solidify some of their anti-Labour votes in other constituencies.

Why vote LibDem when you could vote Tory though?

"Tories Can't Win Here" seats?

assuming no transfer from labour to con, lds would have to lose ~20 mps to conservative or pretty much the lot to labour to break the hung p.

the former's more likely, but i don't think it's all that likely