What do the following have in common? Angela Merkel, cold weather, Ed Balls, Silvio Berlusconi, the wedding of William Windsor and Kate Middleton, British civil servants, Brussels bureaucrats, people concerned about global warming, employment tribunals, trade unions, banks, bank holidays, Liberal Democrats, energy prices, Gordon Brown and the world?
The answer is that they have all been deployed as excuses by members of the government for why the economy is so dire. The proliferation of alibis offered by ministers, and their inability to stick to the same one, is a symptom of increasing desperation about the unravelling of their economic strategy.
The latest economic forecasts for all EU states place Britain 20th out of 27. The chancellor is on even weaker ground when he vaguely attributes Britain's problems to the state of the world. Much of the globe is still growing quite vigorously.
Anxiety is certainly an understandable response and panic might be a more appropriate one to the release of the latest slew of dismal economic data. Unemployment in the three months to September rose at the fastest rate in 17 years. The number of the young jobless has surged over a million, rightly stirring fears of a Generation U going from school into long-term unemployment without ever knowing work. "The lost generation charge is very dangerous for us," says one government strategist. "That gives Labour a really good line of attack." It is agitating ministers as unalike in so many other respects as Nick Clegg and Iain Duncan Smith. One of the odder alliances within the cabinet, they have joined forces behind the scenes to press for much more government activity to stem the flow of the young straight on to dole queues. Whatever schemes they come up with, and even if some are admirable, these will be palliatives, not cures, for the curse of youth unemployment.
For more: Excuses, excuses, excuses – the chancellor is running out of alibis| Andrew Rawnsley | Comment is free | The Observer
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