Ross Clark Ross Clark

No. 10 is distorting the economy

How did the Vote Leave government become so economically profligate?

Job vacancies at a record high, a shortage of 90,000 lorry drivers, farmers complaining about a lack of seasonal workers, care homes complaining about difficulties in recruiting staff — and 1.9 million people still on furlough at the end of June. It shouldn’t be difficult to put these figures together and work out what is going on — even if Lord Adonis, with his usual tunnel vision, has been busily tweeting blaming everything on Brexit. When the furlough scheme was introduced it was intended as a short-term measure to tide over businesses that had been forced to close as a result of Covid restrictions. So why is it still in place when the economy has almost entirely reopened?

I don’t see a government that is reining in the wasteful spending that the Leave campaign rightly laid at the door of the EU

Instead of having a scheme designed to protect jobs we now have one which could not be better conceived to prevent people from taking up employment.

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