[andrewb]

Originally Posted by mickmc

"over 3 million unemployed " - yep, sure sounds familiar - if you endured life under the last Tory government

Re a quote from Tom Harris MP

SITTING in the BBC studio at 4 Millbank earlier today, I found myself reminiscing on air about the first Tory recession of their time in office, when unemployment hit three million and a million more were dumped onto long-term invalidity benefits.

At the time, in the early ’80s, that level of unemployment was virtually unthinkable and had not been experienced since the 1930s. I recall speaking to a trade union official who told me that, despite the polls at the time, he had been absolutely sure that Labour would win the 1983 general election simply because the nation would not tolerate any government which presided over such a disaster…

Fast forward to today’s awful news that unemployment has hit the two million mark. And when economists predict an inexorable rise to more than three million in the next year, they’re greeted with unsurprised resignation.

The reason for that defeatism is that in recent memory, for almost the entire period of Conservative government from 1979 to 1997, mass unemployment was an inescapable fact of life. Nearly two decades in which the numbers out of work never fell below two million.

Enter Labour in 1997, and for the next 11 years we had a growing economy, record numbers of jobs and, for almost all of the period we’ve been in government, virtually full employment.



" world class athelete of an economy" - was it - were you there ?? - no, didn't think so

We get it - there was high unemployment in the 80's. That doesn't make it okay for the 3 million people going to be unemployed by this time next year.

We had a growing economy that was built on debt after they stopped following the Conservative economic plans in 2001. Nothing to be proud of.