Sicknote UK

THE Welfare Party’s creation of a world where work is increasingly optional is crushing hopes of a return to prosperity.

Yesterday’s unemployment and benefit figures were dismal.

John Healey, Chancellor of the Exchequer, attending a Business Roundtable Meeting in Downing Street.Chancellor John Healey’s ‘I didn’t know’ excuse won’t wash – Labour must stop the benefits jamboree and back Britain’s strivers Credit: Alamy

claims — including 4.1million on s and 3.5million on the health element of .

Shockingly, that is up by ONE MILLION in just a year.

A FIFTH of all working-age adults have now disappeared from the market altogether.

Meanwhile, more than 200,000 jobs have been lost since took power.

Private sector wages are rising at just 2.9 per cent. But in the public sector — where the Government has spent billions on — wage increases are DOUBLE at six per cent.

Labour’s addiction to State power means that pay gap will only get wider and the cost to a shrinking number of taxpayers even higher.

Does anyone in Government understand the massive economic problems the country now faces?

Yesterday, allies of Chancellor desperately briefed he didn’t know how bad things were until arriving in the Treasury. Really?

With debt and welfare spiralling out of control and growth near zero, Britain has been facing a slow-motion economic car crash for well over a year.

The only way out of the giant mess is for Healey to crack down on the skivers’ jamboree.

He then needs to show he is committed to freeing up the strivers by cutting taxes and putting more back in their pockets.

So far, there’s been precious little sign that Labour has the stomach for the fight needed to deliver either.

Lou blow

SIR Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves’ answer to the crippled public finances was to target business.

But driving up National Insurance on employers and making the minimum wage unaffordable only ended up pricing a million young people out of jobs.

Yesterday, First Minister unveiled another genius plan.

This time it’s to saddle firms with another costly headache by bringing in .

That includes the right to demand more working from home. Bosses will be compelled to waste time holding meetings over any requests — and come up with reasons for refusing.

It won’t do anything to boost growth or productivity, one of the Government’s main aims. In fact, it might well have the opposite effect.

But it’s not a bad return for the union chiefs who pushed for ever more onerous workers’ rights in return for donating millions to Labour.