I cornered Ken Clarke after the press conference on employment and welfare today and asked him a direct question about my pet subject – Margaret Thatcher’s Enterprise Allowance Scheme.
I couldn’t get in a question during the press conference itself, which was dominated by journalists from Channel 4 (three questions, come on chaps, fair’s fair!) and some bloke called Forsyth from the Spectator.
I asked Clarke about his post on the Linked In social networking site asking for people’s experiences of the 1980s scheme for people wanting to come off the dole and set up their own small businesses. I have been lobbying for this for some time, as has the Federation of Small Businesses. It is the central recommendation of a New Deal of the Mind report for the Arts Council published last month.
Clarke was remarkably frank with me.
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