You're not actually denying any of the points I made though,are you-specifically that growth in the UK has been flatlining for the last 3 years ?
I didn't see you make that point, but I wouldn't deny it. It is clear from the published statistics that there has been no meaningful economnic growth in the last 3 years.
On the employment point, you are correct that a significant proportion has been part-time work. Employment statistics have been strange since about 2003, when 97% of all new people in work were accounted for by foreign nationals. That trend has largely continued under this government as well. The UK sucks in labour because there is a structural unemployment problem. Granted, there is still a component that is cyclical (i.e. people are unemployed due to the wider economic conditions), but there remains about 5% of the population that are unemployed for structural reasons (i.e. even in a boom they would be unemployed because they either don't want to work or no one wants to employ them).
Funnily enough, if I remember my A level Samuelson correctly, (which I think I do), that 5% unemployment figure corresponds pretty much to the Keynesian definition of full employment,even in a boom.
I was under the impression, however, that this particular figure had been revised upwards by Keynesian economists in recent years.
Btw,you've agreed that growth has been flatlining in the last three years under the coalition and that the increase in employment figures masks a huge rise in the numbers of those in part-time employment.
What explanation do you have for the fact that productivity has actually decreased in the last three years at the same time as employment has risen? (As I said above that's quite a clever trick).
