10,000 will have the option of full-time education on benefit. Some defenders of the scheme would justify this as they say it gives the long-term unemployed a bit of work experience. In any case work experience is useful for one thing only - experience of work, and if no new jobs come into existence it will just be a waste of time. The main point is that, even under favourable estimates, nearly three quarters of the jobs 'created' under the plan are not new jobs at all. Tory critics are predictably saying the whole thing is just a waste of money.
Unemployment is the biggest waste of money there has ever been.
If we accept this argument the programme should be quids in by year two. They also castigated the civil servants for not giving them the full figures to provide a more detailed and devastating calculation as to how much unemployment is costing us all. Socialist Appeal and everyone else in the movement would regard the money as well spent if the Brown plan works and unemployment is reduced - but it won't be. Then there are the proposals for single parents. Yet every serious survey shows they are desperate for work.