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ROD LIDDLE
Labour said ‘if you can work, you should’ – so how about they do something about the 9.5million who don’t?
The number of Brits in work has decreased by one million since just before the Covid pandemic
I WONDER how long it will be before nobody born British works and all the jobs are done by foreigners?
Imported because they are cheap labour.
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The latest figures on employment have just been released.
And they don’t make terribly happy reading.
The thing that should really bother us — and bother Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor — is that a staggering 9.5million British people aged between 18 and 65 are neither in work nor looking for work.
The figures don’t explain how many of those are actively hiding from work and clambering into the wardrobe when work comes knocking at the door.
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OK, some of those not looking for work have good reasons not to do so.
There are students, for example — working towards degrees which will give them excellent qualifications not to work in the future.
There are people who have retired early.
And there are mums or dads looking after their children while the other parent works.
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But that still leaves a helluva lot of other people — I’d estimated around 4.5million — who have not the slightest intention of doing any work whatsoever.
Interestingly, the number of Brits in work has decreased by one million since just before the Covid pandemic.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announces £22bn black hole in UK budget
I think furloughs probably convinced an awful lot of us that working was a fool’s game.
Much more fun to stay at home watching Dr Pimple Popper and maybe take the dog for a walk if they can be a***d.
The biggest reason given for not looking for work is “illness”, including mental illnesses.
These have risen and risen until, one day, we will probably all be on the sick, claiming to be doolally.
The question is, what can be done about this?
Because it isn’t healthy for the social fabric of the country, or for the economy.
One idea might be to tighten up a little on the criteria used by doctors to sign someone off sick for half their lives.
I suspect the docs will sign anything for a quiet life.
Another is to wonder a little if maybe we’re over-diagnosing mental illnesses — and that in some cases, minor mental afflictions may just be a part of the human condition.
But there is a bigger issue here. It seems to me that benefits for those not working are too high.
And wages are still far too low, especially in the private sector.
So the incentive for actually dragging yourself out of your pit to do a day’s work doesn’t seem worthwhile any more.
Trouble is, industry is reluctant to pay liveable wages when there are hundreds of thousands of people coming here every year prepared to work for eight quid an hour and a packet of Monster Munch.
So the first thing Rachel Reeves must do — for the long-term good of the economy — is impress upon Sir Keir Starmer the absolute necessity of reducing inward immigration. Pronto.
By a very great deal.
Then the market will re-adjust and an awful lot of firms will suddenly find that they have to pay rather more to the workforce.
And next, tighten up on the benefits.
Do not raise them in line with inflation.
Let there be, at last, a natural balance which makes working an attractive proposition and lying on the sofa rather less profitable.
How about it, Rach?
You’ve already said, “if you can work, you should work”.
Dead right. So how’s about you do something about it?
AT TOP OF OUR GAMES
HUGE congrats to the British Olympic team for coming third in the overall medal table.
Yes, above the French and the Aussies. That’s a remarkable achievement.
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People sometimes say the UK gets so many medals because we’re good at really expensive sports, which the poorer countries can’t afford to do.
Stuff like cycling and dressage.
But here’s the thing. If you narrow the Olympics down to just track and field events – ie athletics – where does the UK come in the table for medals since the modern Olympics began?
Well, apparently we rank second, with four times more medals than the old Soviet Union!
We punch well above our weight.
YES, today is the day the kids have been dreading for three months.
It’s A-Level results day.
Go easy on them, huh?
Just remember, if they get the results they wanted, it will mean you forking out for university.
And a £40,000 debt around their necks.
If they fail, they can start earning money and maybe even pay some rent.
Win-win, innit?
AXE BAN ON ARMS
UKRAINE has launched a pretty audacious invasion of Russia.
Ukrainian troops are pushing into the Kursk region – once the sight of the biggest tank battle in history.
That was in the Second World War.
And the difference then is that both sides were allowed to use all the weapons at their disposal.
Right now, Ukraine has been told that some of its most crucial weapons cannot be used inside Russia.
This is hamstringing the Ukrainians.
Sir Keir Starmer should take a lead and allow the Ukrainians to use whatever weapons they have been given, wherever they like.
Have some guts, Starmer.
MYSTERIOUS ELEPHANT ARTIST BANKSY KNOWS HOW TO BLOW HIS OWN TRUMPET
TIPPING Point, then.
Two contestants are asked to name which English artist painted The Fighting Temeraire, left (which is by Turner).
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The first answers with great confidence, “Picasso!”
And what does the other say? “Banksy”.
And that’s the depressing thing.
The mysterious Banksy is about the only English artist anyone has heard of these days.
And he is crap. He’s been very busy recently. Spray painting his stupid daubs all over the place.
I’ve seen more meaningful pictures in a three-year-old kid’s Etch A Sketch.
One of Banksy’s latest is a stencil of two elephants, above.
Brilliant.
Banksy is a genius. But not at art. He is a genius at self-publicity.
SHAME ON REG
I HOPE Reginald D Hunter is feeling proud of himself.
He reportedly told an anti-Israeli joke at his Edinburgh Fringe gig.
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Nothing wrong with that, even if it is a bit predictable.
Especially from someone previously accused of making a Holocaust denial gag.
But how Reg, below, apparently reacted when two Jewish theatre-goers complained was unforgivable.
He reportedly asked them to leave and audience members jeered.
Big man, aren’t you, Reg? And about as funny as Joe Lycett.
INFLATION has nosed its way up again. Not by much, but by enough to start us all worrying.
None of us want to return to the price of a pack of butter seemingly doubling every week.
So keep a close eye on the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves.
She’s already caved in to a humungous pay award for the junior doctors.
The rest of the public sector workers will see that as a benchmark.
And they will raise their pay demands.
You can only bribe workers not to strike for so long before inflation takes hold once again.
I’M JUST PLANE TRENDY
WHEN I first read about the term “rawdogging”, I assumed it was just like dogging.
Except maybe more, y’know, hardcore.
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But it’s not. It’s taking an airline flight and not watching a film, reading a book or eating anything. Just looking at the map of the flight.
Well, in which case, I’m hip, daddy-o.
Manchester City striker Erling Haaland did it recently, but I’ve done it for 30 years.
I just sit and stare at the map, even on a 12-hour flight.
And I imagine what the awful people we’re flying over are getting up to.
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Sometimes, maybe if we’re passing over Tehran or Brussels, I’ll speak into my hand: “Target in sight! Fire!”
I’m a rawdogging pioneer, mate.