MORE BULLSHIT FROM BROWN

Once again we are subjected to the usual government unemployment bullshit. What I would really like to see rather than figures for those signing on, are the figures of those who have lost their jobs but not signed on. Unemployment benefit in the UK is so low it is aimed solely at the poorest in society. This is a new type of recession, where middle earners are losing their jobs right, left and centre. There is no way people like Thomas or I could fail to make what we'd earn on the dole every month just by doing some sort of freelance from home, and therefore there is simply no point in signing on, but that means people like us (and there are thousands of us, if what I hear at the school gate is true) are suddenly earning a fraction of what we once did, thus having very little money to plough back into the failing economy, but we are not showing up in any of these statistics that are proposing that things will soon be on track again in the UK. Make no mistake, anyone who thinks that everything will be going back to 2006 after a year or two's hardship is living in cloud-cuckoo land.