More like this
Record jobless figures: time ministers pulled out fingers
Meanwhile, Paxo gets stuffed as he tells jobless graduates to lower their expectations
YOUTH unemployment has hit a record high of 1.02 million in the past quarter, increasing the pressure on Chancellor George Osborne to opt for a Plan B to boost the economy in his Autumn Statement at the end of the month.
Total UK unemployment has risen by 129,000 to 2.62 million but so far Osborne has been resisting all the calls from industry, unions and Opposition MPs to drop his drive for cuts in public spending, which are increasing the dole queues, and go for growth.
The debate over youth unemployment is getting acrimonious. Jeremy Paxman was chewed off last night on BBC Newsnight by David Miliband for sounding like an Old Fart on the issue in a studio discussion with 30 jobless young people. They included graduates who had taken courses in media studies and one girl who complained her course had been cancelled at the last minute leaving her unemployed - it was in how to sing rock music.
One of the jobless graduates argued that the coalition owed it to young people to find them jobs after raising tuition fees.
Paxo responded: "Maybe you should choose a degree that is going to get you a job."
Miliband retorted: "Complaining about the degree they have chosen isn't the issue. I think that is insulting."
Paxo: "People should lower their expectations."
Miliband: "The idea that there is a future for Britain in having less skills - talk about poverty of expectations, that is an absolute disaster."
Youth employment experts say that the best way to get the young into work is one-to-one guidance from careers staff at job centres. Iain Duncan Smith, the welfare secretary, got personally involved during a Jeremy Vine show last Friday when he was confronted by a jobless youth from Tottenham, who hadn't got a job despite loads of applications.
Duncan Smith told the startled youth that he would personally see to it after the programme that the boy got a job.
That's the spirit! The Mole thinks that instead of David Cameron going to see German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday to plead for her to bail out the eurozone on which Britain's shaky economy depends, he should get the Cabinet together and start hitting the phones to get these kids some jobs.
If he doesn't do something like that, the calls for a Plan B will become deafening. ·
