Patel’s Priti vacant about workforce

In my limited life, I always thought that being economically inactive was what happened a dozen or so times a year when there was too much month left at the end of your money. Or perhaps when we pesky, frugal consumers received a thunderbolt from on high for not spending enough to get the government off the hook re the parlous state of the economy.

But no. It appears that the “Economically Inactive” bond together to form a kind of sinister collective; 8.7 million of us altogether (if Priti Patel is to be believed, and yes, I do realise that that might be a big ask). We are lurking amidst the hard-working, if still largely impoverished, general population like those sleeper agents familiar in the worlds of John le Carre or Vladimir Putin, spreading our idle worthlessness as we suck the nation dry.

Right, I know that the term technically means unemployed or not in employment, whatever the difference may be. Those actively seeking employment maybe don’t count (let’s not go there) in this particular measure of worth. Experts, much maligned though they are, have calculated that only around one-and-a-half million or so of this newly-defined group of ne’er-dowells are actually available – or even actually able – to take on all those jobs hitherto cavalierly handed out by evil employers to low-paid migrants. In many cases, Ms Patel, they actually have something better to do than earn minimum wage or less doing a job that may be described by you as “low skilled” but is probably better defined as “undervalued”. Whether it’s fruit picking, caring or involves many branches of the nursing profession.

No matter if you are a student with loans coming out of your ears and a list of part-time jobs. You are economically inactive. What about those caring for young children or the sick and elderly members of their own families, calculated at saving the government billions each year? By this definition, still “economically inactive”.

The genuinely long-term sick or disabled, made to jump through hoops in tick-box exercises and, more frequently than seems reasonable, declared fit for work when their legs (if they have them) are perilously close to being their last?

Then there are those pesky pensioners. Many continue to work because they want to, many take parttime jobs and some (ahem) even do a bit of freelancing. There are better-off older people, some more by luck and timing than good judgment. And, of course, these happy few are very handy to governments, pitting them against the disenfranchised young in a kind of fake generational stand-off.

But a great many, even if thoughtlessly “enjoying” their golden years by gadding about and spending their ill-gotten gains in the shops and attractions of this great nation, might not be “earning”, but are still paying tax on their pensions and on at least some of any savings they might have managed to scrape together.

Can we draw conclusions from the news that the great June Brown has “more or less” hung up her overall and pointy-collared blouse after 35 years portraying the legendary Dot Cotton in the regular small screen doomfest that is super-soap EastEnders?

At 93, however, even if she handed in her notice because she “just got fed up with it”, she should not contemplate an easier life as she eases towards her telegram from her almost exact contemporary, the Queen. In our brave new world of bean-counting, you can bet your life that she’ll be “encouraged” down the Job Centre by a no doubt thoroughly economically active public functionary to take on a role stacking shelves in B&Q or, perhaps more in line with her thespian talents, providing warm and sympathetic voice-overs for videos and DVDs explaining the benefits system to those who wilfully persist in needing a bit of a leg-up now and again to make ends meet.

Then we have the sterling example of good old Peter Purvis, 81. He was summarily ejected from his job commentating on Crufts only last year, after 41 years in the saddle (or should that be on the lead?). Ageism personified, you might think, at a time when we are all being told that the younger generation is probably going to have to work till they drop. Yet there he is, invited back by Channel

4 to be what is referred to as a “paid guest contributor”. He’s thrilled, which is great and true of many active oldsters who still feel they have a bit of productive energy left in them. And good luck to them. But finding an entire new, old workforce for the kinds of jobs that are going to be coming available? I don’t see how that, if you’ll pardon the pun, is going to work.

June Brown, 93, is hanging up her Dot Cotton apron from EastEnders.