One with memory problems replaced by one with sight problems?

The new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, James Purnell, made his debut on Sunday on the (Labour) friendly show with Andrew Marr. Yes it really was James, this time not air-brushed in in his absence.

He was mazing, even claiming that Britain had now reached full employment. "We have the lowest unemployment rate for 30 years." Only 30 years? If we have reached full employment it is the lowest level ever!

There are two problems.

1) His own department last May published figures showing that among all those of working age, 5,236.810, or 14.3% were not currently working. Of the 14.3%, 11.6% fell into three categories - on Job seekers allowance, on incapacity benefit (7.2 %, or half), or lone parents.

So unless Mr. Purnell knows of some miraculous improvement since last year, which a publicity hungry Government mysteriously forgot to publish, he is likely to be telling a porky.

The 14.3% is, of course, a national average. For some large centres the figures are higher - 24% in Middlesbrough and Hartlepool, 23% in Blackpool, and 20% in Manchester, Newcastle and Birmingham. Have they employed all these since last year?

2) His own department are presently introducing schemes to help back to work a significant number of those at present on incapacity benefit. There seems to be a recognition that employment could be pushed significantly higher, that is that unemployment is much higher than the number registered as unemployed.

For these two reasons, and probably others, such as the fact that it is difficult to define and measure full employment, he was guilty of telling a lie. Unless he was extremely badly briefed by his new department, he must have known that the labour force could in theory be much larger, and that many people in the 14% qualify for benefit in other ways and so do not technically join those registered as unemployed.

In the time of the Thatcher Government, the Labour opposition made the regular complaint that some people did not register for unemployment benefit because they were not qualified to claim. The real level of unemployment they often calculated as double the official measure. They may or may not have been right, but Mr. Purnell is certainly wrong to claim that the only unemployed now are those registered as such. The number of those unemployed could actually be trebled at least from the numbere of registered.

Mr. Purnell, if you carry on in this vein you are likely to lose all credibility.