Blogs

Unemployment in the UK fell again in the last three months, seeing a drop of 97,000 to 1.86 million or 5.7% of the workforce.

With the number in work growing by 103,000 between October and December 2014, the labour market looks like it is returning to some measure of health.

One of the big problems of the recession is the rise of fake self-employment, driven by those made redundant who could not find paid work.

This is only now starting to unwind, with a small drop of 19,000 to 4.4 million in the last three months, but still up by 88,000 on the year.

England's Premier League is one of the world's most exciting - and the most watched football league in the world.

Its most recent TV rights auction still took many people aback though, with more than £5.1 billion set to roll into clubs from 2016 to 2019, a 70% increase.

The team that finishes bottom of the league will receive more than £100 million from TV channels alone under this deal, a huge increase on their current arrangements.

This may be a good time to ask where all that money will go.

The parliamentary committee examining benefit sanctions right now is bringing welcome scrutiny to the issue, after years of unemployed people receiving shocking treatment at the hands of the jobcentres that are meant to help them into work.

Witness after witness from within the system, as well as from academia, support groups and advice agencies, has lined up to pour scorn on the way that meagre incomes are ripped away from some of Britain's poorest people in the most dishonest way simply to fulfil the coalition's targets and allow them to transfer funds to the rich in tax cuts.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), bane of the lives of unemployed people, has refused a legitimate request for information from a BBC reporter.

Iain Duncan Smith's DWP has made a name for itself as one of the most vindictive arms of government since the coalition came into power, far more concerned with saving money than serving its jobless customers, and as useful as a wet paper bag in getting people into work.

UKIP has done it again.

One of its serving councillors, Lynton Yates from Leicester county council, has issued a leaflet in support of his campaign to become MP for Charnwood, and it includes a policy which will shock unemployed people and other benefit claimants.

According to The Guardian, Yates railed against the idea that claimants should be allowed to drive, preferring to erode their rights while misunderstanding what benefits are and who gets them.