Tory MP thinks million young jobless should “busk” for travel costs

Yesterday I argued that the Tory response to Youth unemployment was callous and mealy mouthed. but even so this has shocked me.

According to the Metro, Damian Collins thinks that young people without a job should “busk”:

“When Labour MP Stella Creasy pointed out some young people were struggling to scratch together the travel fare to look for jobs he said that when he had worked for advertising agency M&C Saatchi the creative director had told him he had ‘busked to raise the train fare to get into London to hawk his book of work around until he got his break’.”

It’s certainly a new twist to “get on your bike”…

Update: Liam Byrne has called for Collins to apologise, saying:

“This tells you everything you need to know about the Tories’ attitude to getting our young people back to work. They are out of touch, out of ideas and frankly out of order.
 
“In the week when a cross-party Select Committee slammed the Government’s Youth Contract, it is a complete disgrace for a Tory A-lister to blame young people for his Government’s failure.
 
“Damian Collins must now apologise to the million young people out of work that his Government is letting down so badly.”