Questions for the new 'Gissa job' generation

13 April 2012

Back in the early 1980s, Alan Bleasdale's TV drama Boys From the Black Stuff gripped the nation. It followed the fortunes of a group of unemployed men. One of them, Yosser Hughes, went around Liverpool saying "Gissa job" to anyone he came across who was working, following it up with the more plaintive, "I could do that."

"Gissa job" became one of the catchphrases of the time, the opposite pole to Norman Tebbit's "Get on your bike". But who will be the Yosser Hugheses of this recession? What will the attitude of Government be to them, and - more importantly - what will collective response be?

Monday was another black day for employment statistics, with 75,000 jobs lost globally - 4,000 of them in the UK.

This recession will differ from the 1980s in one crucial respect: no one will be able to make the argument that job losses are part of restructuring the British economy, unless, that is, the restructuring required is that of the financial sector - and by implication a retreat from globalised finance to economic autarchy.

Perhaps it will take people in tattered pinstripe suits, wandering the dealing rooms of the City and crying out "Gissa job" before this is given serious consideration - if so, I don't think we have long to wait.

Until the current downturn, unemployment had more or less vanished from the political agenda. The New Labour Government hid unemployment statistics - as did the Tories before them - under the guise of "sickness". The truth is that there were more economically unproductive people than ever before in pre-recession Britain, their benefits paid for by tax receipts garnered from the asset prices boom and the banking sector.

We won't know quite how bad it's going to get until the upturn comes. But from where we're sitting right now the prospects are not good at all, and here in the South-East the guillotine is falling hard and fast. I've sat round quite a few kitchen tables recently discussing retraining - fast becoming to 2009's middle class what "downsizing" was to 1999's. But if, to paraphrase Lord Tebbit, we should all get in our BMWs and look for work, what work should it be?

Many of the Yosser Hugheses of the early 1980s never worked again. I think we need to ask ourselves some hard questions about what our work is for, who it benefits and why we should do it at all.

Government rhetoric has all been about a skills-based economy and competing in the world market but the harsh facts are that all those people being laid off from ING were skilled in paper-pushing and number-crunching. If we are to come through this recession only for the economy to take on the same old ghastly lineaments, then it will all truly have been in vain.

Kate needs to have words

I have no intention of looking at clips of Kate Winslet's tongue-tied acceptance speech at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, any more than I looked at coverage of her emotionally incontinent performance at the Golden Globes. This is not the Kate Winslet I love, for she is never inarticulate, or histrionic — unless the script demands it. Yes, the truth is out, the Kate Winslet I admire is an actor, and an extremely fine one.

Schopenhauer famously observed that we are all actors, and we all play a part — it just so happens that the parts Ms Winslet plays require scripting. In the unlikely event that we should become a couple, I would insist on a prenuptial agreement that included a provision for a brilliant screenwriter to be on hand 24/7 — only then would my true love live up to my expectations.

My date with a serial killer

Generation Kill, the new series by the makers of The Wire aired on Rupert Murdoch's FX on Sunday evening. As a big fan of The Wire, I called up my cable provider, Virgin, to enhance my package, so I could watch FX. I was delighted when the nice
call-centre woman told me that due to a special offer this would cost me only 55p a month for the first three months.

Conveniently, Generation Kill's first season is only 10 weeks. I like to think I'm depriving Rupert Murdoch and Richard Branson of revenue — and it's a great evening's entertainment.

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