Letters From A Tory Daily views on British politics and the Conservative Party from a centre-right thinker who writes letters on his blog to politicians, journalists and many others.

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“This is desperate stuff from the Tories, who continue to scrabble around trying to find a coherent economic policy.  There is no way they can get 350,000 new jobs out of these proposals. There are too many restrictions being applied, the incentive is too small and many of these ‘new’ jobs will simply displace other people seeking work.  In addition, the Conservatives just cannot pay for this tax cut – it is misleading of Cameron to say he can pay for getting the short-term unemployed back into work by using figures of savings you would make from the long-term unemployed.  Osborne’s judgment is wrong yet again. They are making headlines on the hoof and they will be found out.  They need to make their sums add up – particularly at such a difficult time for the global economy. …Their figures on how many jobs would be created are complete fantasy.”

- a press release in November 2008 from Tony McNulty, Home Office minister, on the Conservative plans to pay employers several thousand pounds for each unemployed worker they take on (a policy that Labour stole yesterday but expanded to 500,000 jobs just for good measure)

H/T Guido