Expenses and unemployment
Two brief thoughts this morning:
1. In a previous posting I indicated that Legg could turn his attention to the big money in MPs' expenses: subsidised mortgages and tax-free capital gains on house selling. That is precisely what he is now doing.
MPs have claimed a lot more for both of these than they have for cleaning or gardening. Legg had better be a robust character: the squeals of pain and anger from MPs so far will be as nothing compared with the reaction when (if) he starts asking for the return of tens of thousands of pounds. I sense he might shy off doing this; if he doesn't we're in for a clash of constitutional proportions.
2. Unemployment rose by 88,000 to just shy of 2.5m in the last three months. The government knows the figures are terrible but takes comfort from a slowing rate of increase. But ministers should perhaps not take too much comfort. A senior Treasury source told me yesterday that unemployment would continue to rise "well into next year", by which I take it to mean that it would only start to fallback sometime in the third quarter. In other words, unemployment is likely still to be rising (to 3m or worse) when the government goes to the country in May/June.
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