Dave Osler’s got a great post up, dripping with sardony, covering Yasmin Alibhai Brown’s dinner party and posh restaurant discussions about the need to slash public services and generally ‘think the unthinkable’.
My favourite bit, but one which may be quite worrying if you’re an Indpendent Sub-Editor, suggests Yasmin might do well to spend a little less time eating posh nosh and a little more gaining a very basic understanding of the measurement of unemployment, is:
‘Remember how the Left reacted when the number of workless reached 2m under Margaret Thatcher? Well comrades it is much worse today.’
Erm, no it isn’t, Yasmin.
As I said here, with a link to an earlier more detailed posts that I think Yasmin may not have seen:
‘The Conservatives in the 1980s/1990s deliberately used a very narrow measure of unemployment, out of keeping with all international standards, and the incoming Labour government then adopted the recognised European standard.
The 2 million figure is not comparable with the 3 million figure; if the current measurement had been used in the 1980s, the figure would have been much, much higher.’
At the time, I suggested that the post at Conservative Home I was referring to might be the start of a deliberate attempt to creation confusion about the two very different measures, aimed at those with the weakest grasp of data like this.
It looks like it worked.
you know when liberals go on about ‘thinking the unthinkable’ that it is code for right-wing rubbish.
Has Yasmin not heard of the Welfare Reform Bill that aims to attack, penalise and chuck sanctions at the most poorest…. or does that not go far enough for her?
Screw the rich, Yasmin, not the poor!
Maybe she should read this factsheet written by the LRC on welfare reform…