LABOUR FAILED TO REDUCE 'NEETS' ANDREW

If you read Andrew Gwynne’s article relating to youth unemployment recently, you could be forgiven for thinking that these huge unemployment figures have suddenly appeared over the last two and a half years. Strange that he never mentions the fact that unemployment in the UK had been steadily growing over the previous 13 years of his party’s administration; characterised by an increasing number of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), with the number of 16-24 year olds categorised as NEET peaking at 1 million in the third quarter of 2009.

When Labour were voted out of office, 2,435,000 people were out of work of which the number of young people in England not in employment or training had risen to 935,000, I don’t remember hearing Andrew Gwynne calling for his government to change policies then, do you?

But considering the latest data which suggested that 22 per cent of 16- to 19-year-old school leavers were functionally innumerate while 17 per cent were illiterate; an unpalatable fact borne out by the CBI who found that one in three British employers had to send workers for remedial training to teach them basic English and maths skills that they had failed to learn at school, it was hardly surprising!

In his next letter to the papers, instead of whinging about what is, perhaps Mr Gwynne might like to enlighten us on how we reached this point. Let him explain why a cross-party committee of MPs said at the end of Labours term, that the number of school leavers without a job or college place had failed to improve “despite one policy strategy after another”. They also raised doubts over Labour claims that school standards had risen dramatically during their 13 years in office. In other words, it concluded with the fact that many school leavers are totally unemployable!

In 2008 for instance; after spending billions of pounds over 10 years of Labour policies, about 261,000 young people – or 10.3 per cent of the 16-18 age group – had no job or training place. Following that announcement Labours official target was to cut the rate to 7.6 per cent by 2010.

Unfortunately, the figure rose to 1,082,000 among 16- to 24 year-olds before settling around 850-900,000 at the end of 2010.

I have listened to speeches from Ed Miliband, television interviews by Ed Balls, listened to debates and reeled at the dross at PMQs and read Andrews letters in the local press and still I have absolutely no idea what Labour's policy is, on any aspect of government; unemployment in particular or the economy in general.

All I can see is that they have taken the word `opposition' and decided it means they have to oppose everything, and propose nothing.

They are no longer New Labour they are just Negative Labour and still cannot be trusted with other people’s money.