Yes, spot on.

To argue that the eurozone crisis was nothing to do with the economy of the UK between 2010 and now is pretty ridiculous.

The scary thing is however that Labour supporters [ustill[/u believe the correct course of action was / is to spend more. Spend, spend, spend. It's really unbelievable and not hard to see why the Tories will be more trusted on the economy for a long time.

Apart from the fact that Labour had no such plans at all if they had won the 2010 election what exactly do you think Osborne is doing now ?

Do you still stand by this?

With a FTE of what exactly?

Any comment to make on yesterday's unemployment figures? 2.62 millions - hijghest for 17 years.

Remind me, who was in power 17 years ago?

So, it's at it's highest level for 17 years, yet also at it's lowest level for 4 years?

Its a headline figure that everyone hangs their coat on, and its good that its falling because it needs to fall quite a long way yet, but there is a lot more to it than the headline figure and I don't believe that many MP's have the nounce or the political will to look beyond it.

I could fix unemployment in a day if I were PM - I could pass a law that proclaimed that no-one in the country was allowed to work more than 30 hours a week in any circumstances - there aren't enough unemployed people in the country to fill the vacancies that that law would create, we'd be begging Bulgarians and Romanians to come here to fill those vacancies.

Now go away and privately look at your last months salary and work out how you'd manage on 75% of it on a permanent basis and while you're at it work out how you'd manage on 50% because 20 hour contracts are very common.

THATS the hidden issue behind employment.

You may be confusing employment and unemployment statistics

I'm not the only one it seems.

The Guardian, BBC , ONS among others all say 2.39m, So where is this other 230,000?

I was not arguing there was no room for labour flexibility. It is how that us achieved that counts. Unfortunately it is far too easy for legislation supposedly designed to introduce flexibility in the labour market to be exploitative, result in employee insecurity and it can also drive wages down.

My argument is that while planning at companies like Vauxhall isn't trivial they and similar companies survived without the need for labour laws that even if they didn't indulge in it themselves led to exploitation elsewhere.

If all employers were good it would not matter but they are not and I'd say even the good ones would occasionally abuse employment laws designed for flexibility if it suited.

The newly privatised Royal Mail has just agreed a deal with the union that they will not use zero hours contacts [uat all.[/u They will still be employing extra staff over Christmas to deal with the seasonal variation so if they can do that I don't see why similar companies and retailers in particular can't work out how to do the same.

Contrast that with the chairman of Dominoes Pizza and his desire to import cheap labour.

Overall I don't think in all my adult life I have lived through a period where [icapital accumulation[/i has been so slewed towards a very narrow band of society at the expense of the rest or it.

I don't think it is healthy at all for the top 1% to be racing ahead when the rest suffer a decline in living standards as wage increases (such as they are) fall so far behind the cost of living and [ione[/i of the reasons for this is underemployment and things like zero hours contracts keeping wages low.

This isn't the politics of envy either. I am up there at the top end of the wage spectrum and so should be Tory voting fodder myself but I have never yet seen a Tory administration that doesn't harm the interests of the less well off. This one is the worst I have ever seen for that.

What surprises me is many on here who espouse a right wing view are also worse off under this government but just can't see it.

Do you still stand by this?

Yes. The graphs kindly provided show this. Along with real wages falling and historically fast population growth there's little reason to assume it's going to increase significantly in the short term. I would imagine it will stay relatively flat. Boosted a little by falling unemployment but hampered by falling real wages, population growth and underemployment. It's just a guess as to which force will be slightly stronger than the others.

Surely not? Cleggers and Vince have told us many times how they have ameliorated would be Tory policy where it affects the less well off. Are you wrong or Cleggers?