Party Lines: December 15th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

After new statistics showed unemployment on the rise, Douglas Alexander spoke to BBC News and pointed out that public sector jobs were being lost, and weren’t being replaced by private sector jobs:

“One of the most worrying aspects of the figures is that where we’ve seen a reduction in the number of jobs in the public sector, we haven’t seen the private sector picking up the slack and creating new jobs.”

“Only yesterday we revealed in the Labour party that the government’s own assumptions are that we’re going to see significant rises in unemployment amongst young people who have been unemployed for nine months.”

“We will be pushing the government hard to make sure they answer for the economic judgements they are making.”

Ed Balls appeared on the Daily Politics today, and spoke out on short prison sentences – perhaps suggesting that he will attack the coalition from the right:

“In my view, for young people, to be honest, longer sentences are better…I’m not saying prison is the answer, but it is part of the solution, definitely.”

Balls was also asked about Ed Miliband’s performance at PMQs, and suggested that he’d rather more focus had been given to the economy (as well as joking that he’d given Alan Johnson some economics textbooks):

“Personally, I’d rather he’d had done a second question on the economy…The economy is the most important issue of this parliament.”