Fury at claim there ‘are no unemployed’
PHILIP Hammond claimed there are “no unemployed people” yesterday despite figures showing 1.425 million out of work.
The Chancellor gaffed spectacularly on the BBC just four days before he delivers one of the most important Budgets in years.
Denying that driverless cars on the road by 2021 would leave taxi and truck drivers on the scrapheap, he told The Andrew Marr Show: “Either we embrace change and we put ourselves at the forefront of it or we try to hide from change and we allow ourselves to slip behind. I remember 20 years ago we were worrying about what was going to happen to the million shorthand typists in Britain as the personal computer took over.
“Well, nobody has a shorthand typist these days. Where are all these unemployed people? There are no unemployed people.”
Office for National Statistics figures show unemployment dropped by 59,000 in the three months to September but that still left 1.425 million out of work, a rate of 4.3%.
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell tweeted: “The Chancellor thinks there are no unemployed people. Completely out of touch.” Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Jon Trickett added: “If the person in charge of finances doesn’t know, or chooses to ignore, the fact that nearly 1.5 million people are unemployed, and almost a million are on zero-hours contracts, he is losing grip on reality.”
Mr Hammond denied the Government had “forgotten” about those out of work.
Speaking an hour later to ITV, he tried to repair the damage, saying: “There’s 1.4 million unemployed – that’s 1.4 million too many. The point I was making is previous waves of change have not resulted in millions being long-term unemployed.”
Mr Hammond was already fighting to keep his job after Theresa May only kept him on after failing to win a landslide in the election.
He has also been dubbed “Eeyore” by Brexit-backing Tories because of his gloomy statements around the EU exit.
The Chancellor yesterday refused to be drawn on his future.
Asked if he will still be in the job in a few weeks, he said: “That’s not for me to decide. By the way, I’ve spent most of the year listening to predictions of my demise.”
Former UKIP deputy leader Suzanne Evans tweeted: “There should be at least one unemployed person. Him.”