The Tories are the party of unemployment – but Labour offers a positive future for young Britain

By Chris Williamson

The Tories and certain sections of the media have been trying to undermine Labour’s record on unemployment and welfare. I remember them doing the same thing in the run up to the 1979 general election with their infamous ‘Labour isn’t working’ billboard poster. The reality when Margaret Thatcher got in was very different: the Tories launched a wholesale assault on working class communities, leading to mass unemployment not seen since the 1930s.

This year, the Tories have once again been asserting that Labour is the party of unemployment. But there are over 2.5 million more people in work today than in 1997 and unemployment is below the EU and US averages. And unlike the Tories, Labour actually cares about the fate of unemployed people: this Labour government is investing £5 billion to get people back to work, a move that was opposed by David Cameron’s Conservatives.

The Tories’ approach to the impact of the recession on working class communities was perfectly illustrated when John Major said: “If it isn’t hurting, it isn’t working”. Using that yardstick, John Major’s policy prescription worked a treat, because millions of families across the UK were certainly wounded by the Conservatives’ economic policies.

Young people, steel workers, miners, low paid public sector workers were just some of the groups who fell victim to Thatcher’s obsession with Milton Friedman’s now discredited monetarist economic theory.

Even in the face of the worst worldwide recession for 70 years, there are still more 18 to 24-year-olds in work now than there were in 1997. Long-term youth unemployment is far lower than in previous recessions; in fact there were still seven times as many young unemployed workers when Labour came to power in 1997 than there are today. In stark contrast to the Tories, who wrote off generations of young people, Labour is taking steps to prevent long-term youth unemployment becoming an issue. Policy initiatives like Backing Young Britain, the Future Jobs Fund and the September Guarantee offer a positive future for Britain’s young people.

In the previous recession under the Tories there was a considerable increase in the number of people claiming invalidity benefits. This had the effect of massaging the unemployment statistics, yet the official unemployment total still topped 3 million. By comparison, this recession has not led to large numbers of people being transferred onto long-term sickness benefits.

When the UK emerged from the last recession, under a Tory government, its manufacturing base had been decimated and the economy was over-reliant on the financial services sector. This left us particularly vulnerable to the domino effect that started with the collapse of the US sub-prime market. Gordon Brown’s financial acumen has saved Britain from an economic and a social catastrophe. The approach he spearheaded has been recognised as an exemplar for economic recovery around the worl.

But the Tories haven’t acknowledged that it was their failures that sowed the seeds of the meltdown in the financial services sector. The truth is, they haven’t learned anything from their previous economic failures: given the chance, David Cameron has made it clear that they would repeat the same inept economic policies that had such a devastating impact during the recessions of the 1930s and 1980s. Their plans would exacerbate the economic downturn leading to an economic disaster and send unemployment into the stratosphere. Professor David Blanchflower, a former member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England says George Osborne’s plans could lead to unemployment reaching 5 million.

That is why the Labour leadership through to the Labour Party’s rank and file membership must counter the Tory propaganda with the facts about what their plans would actually mean. Failure is not an option.