Burnham Acknowledges That a Generation Has Fallen
The Independent says there’s little to argue with in the prime minister’s recent statement on the suffering of young people not in education, training, or employment, the million-plus so-called Neets.
Andy Burnham is right to remind the country of the scale of the problem: one in eight people aged 18 to 24 in Birmingham. It barely bears thinking about the implied loss of GDP, the impact on tax revenues that fund public services, and the drag on living standards. At least several billion pounds.
But as Burnham says, an expensive welfare system “provides an assessment, a payment and then a goodbye”. This is, in fact, an ‘economic catastrophe and a moral failure’ and he is honest enough to realize where the guilt lies with the political classes, including himself.
So a generation is let down by common consent at a time when the economy needs to keep developing and productivity rising amid fast technological change. No sophisticated industrial economy, not even the UK, can afford to carry a tier of under-employed talent. And if it could, there is no moral justification for allowing fellow citizens to languish in dismal near-poverty.
But even now that he is prime minister and securely in control of his party and the national agenda, Burnham still sounds like he is running for party leadership. His appraisal of the situation is solid. So is his basic solution: getting people who are anxious to make something of their lives off benefits into training and jobs.
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