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Ben Marlow Associate Editor |
Amid warnings from Labour grandee Alan Milburn that youth worklessness is becoming an “urgent national crisis,” it would be easy to dismiss the younger generation as work-shy drop-outs.
It’s undoubtedly the view of many that those on benefits are happy to sit on their backsides, cashing in their welfare cheques every fortnight, while the rest of the country earns an honest crust.
Several alarming figures in Milburn’s review into worklessness risk entrenching such views. Forecasts suggest that the number of NEETs – those classed as not in education, employment or training – could rise by nearly a third to more than 1.25 million over the next five years.
Current levels are costing the country £125bn a year, equivalent to nearly double the nation’s entire defence budget, he points out.
The release of new ONS statistics showing 613,000 young people are now classed as economically inactive (meaning they are not in work or looking for a job) will do little to help the image of unemployed young people as little more than layabouts. It is the highest number of young people in this category since the records began in 2001.
Yet, to his great credit, Milburn says these are lazy tropes. Yes, the Saturday job is in serious decline, and fewer teenagers are doing work experience, but 84 per cent of the young people he and his team spoke to said they wanted to work.
Milburn says the real drivers of this growing problem are not a reluctance to work but factors like limited vocational education, an outdated benefits system, and perhaps most importantly, too few opportunities. With job vacancies at their lowest level in 12 years, it’s desperately hard to find work.
In other words, give the kids a break.
Read the full story here ➤
How Britain sank into the worst jobs crisis in two centuries ➤
This analysis first appeared in our To:Business newsletter. For an expert view on the City’s biggest stories every day, sign up here ➤ |
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Ambrose Evans-Pritchard The issues he bemoans are in great part the former prime minister’s own creation Continue reading ➤
Eleanor Mills I got Andy Burnham his first job in politics. Underestimate him at your peril Continue reading ➤
Martin Vander Weyer The age of HR has turned everyone into a snowflake Continue reading ➤ |
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Marina Ovsyannikova smuggled a poster into the Channel One studio and unfurled it live on air |
Half a million Russians have been killed, Ukrainian drones are reaching ever further into the country, and victory is nowhere in sight, writes Roland Oliphant, our Chief Foreign Analyst. So why do ordinary Russians still acquiesce to Vladimir Putin’s disastrous four-year war? Marina Ovsyannikova, a former state television journalist who fled the country after hijacking a flagship evening news programme to protest against the invasion in 2022, told me about the fear-and-lies tactics behind the Kremlin’s Orwellian magic trick of equating an open-ended war with “stability”.
This interview is available only to subscribers.
Continue reading ➤ |
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Poppy with her mother, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2025 |
After my mother died from pancreatic cancer, I was surprised to find myself drowning in paperwork, writes Poppy Bilderbeck. There is a strange bureaucracy to bereavement – heartbreak collides with forms, passwords and phone calls. Woven through it all are precious pieces of a mother lost too soon: Sunday roasts, Scrabble games and a leopard-print dressing gown. Continue reading ➤ |
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Presidential candidate Abelardo de la Espriella speaks from a bulletproof booth during a campaign rally in Bogota, Colombia |
As Colombians head to the polls this weekend to choose Left-wing president Gustavo Petro’s successor, hard-Right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella is framing it as “a choice between freedom and tyranny, between order and chaos”. The millionaire social media personality, who calls himself The Tiger, counts among his idols: Donald Trump, Javier Milei and Nayib Bukele. Espriella’s brand of Trumpian populism has seen him promise sweeping tax cuts and to make Colombia great again. Harriet Barber has the story. Continue reading ➤ |
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Broadcaster and journalist Emma Barnett has made a documentary for the BBC about her endometriosis |
Considering the trajectory of Emma Barnett’s career, you would have no idea that pain has been a constant presence in her life – but the Today programme host has battled symptoms of endometriosis since the age of 10. “I have woken up in pain, presented Today in pain, presented Woman’s Hour in pain, all the radio shows throughout my career,” she admits. Ahead of her new documentary Fighting Endometriosis, the broadcaster opens up about her lifelong struggle with the disease and why she’s now considering major surgery. For subscribers only ➤ |
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As the capital cities of two of Europe’s most-visited nations, London and Paris regularly fight it out for the title of the continent’s most popular tourist city. Which is best for a short break? Greg Dickinson has put the two capitals head to head, across metrics including museums, cuisine and transport. Continue reading ➤ Here’s another article that I hope you’ll find helpful this morning:
- Landlords are turning their attention to alternative ways to invest in British soil – specifically, vineyards. Should you invest, and how would you do it? Esther Shaw explains.
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At 83, Paul McCartney proves his melodic instincts remain gloriously undimmed |
Pop Paul McCartney: The Boys of Dungeon Lane ★★★★★ Paul McCartney old and new, ancient and contemporary, come together on the 27th studio album of his post-Beatles career. The melodious pop genius of McCartney’s youth and the present-day statesman of rock culture look back with rheumy, sentimental eyes on the memories and influences of his early years. His ebullient duet with Ringo Starr is just one of the highlights that will put a smile on every Beatles fan’s face.
Read Neil McCormick’s full review ➤ Film Backrooms ★★★★★ As bizarre as it is terrifying, Backrooms may not be a revolution in horror, but it’s a beyond-freaky remapping of the genre. This evilly hypnotic film from 20-year-old YouTuber Kane Parsons, about the inexplicable recesses of a discount furniture store, leads us into a maze of sickly yellow corridors. Littered with abandoned objects, it serves no earthly purpose. That’s why it’s weird, and that’s why it’s frightening – even before hulking spectres lope around corners with carnage in mind.
Read Tim Robey’s full review ➤ Books The Make-Believe: A Memoir of Magic and Madness ★★★★★ In her astonishing and brilliant new memoir, Skins and Game of Thrones actress Hannah Murray reveals how she spent a year in a dangerous cult – one that exploited her undiagnosed bipolar disorder and prompted psychosis. After a public and violent breakdown at a London hotel, she was taken to hospital by police and sectioned for two weeks. Remarkably, this surreal event was kept secret, and Murray is now able to tell the story in her own words.
Read Eleanor Halls’s full review ➤ |
Beating around the bushEvery weekday, Orlando Bird, our loyal reader correspondent, shares an off-piste topic that has brought out the best of your opinions and stories. Orlando writes...
Through a recent letter about one specific exchange, Zanzie Griffin drew attention to what I suspect is something of a national affliction.
“We currently have builders at our home,” she wrote. “They are lovely men who work hard and definitely deserve the odd drink I offer them. However, when I ask if they want a cup of tea, they reply: ‘If you like.’ No, I do not like. I don’t want to have to stop what I’m doing to go and make countless cups of coffee or tea. All they have to say is ‘yes, please’ or ‘no, thank you’.”
It’s not just politicians: many people in this country have great trouble responding to a direct question with a straight answer. I know I do – a fact emphatically confirmed whenever I spend time in the United States.
Zanzie’s letter resonated with readers. “One of my office co-workers, when offered tea, would often say, ‘Don’t mind if I do’,” recalled Janet Thomas. However, she added, a plain-speaking vigilante intervened with the riposte: “‘And I don’t mind if you don’t’.”
John Edmondson’s grandmother took an even tougher approach: “On one occasion, having offered a cup of tea to the man painting the outside of her house and received the reply ‘If it’s no trouble’, she declared that it was and departed for the rest of the day – without making any tea.” Terrifying.
Andy Webb suggested a way of sidestepping the minefield: “We recently had builders working at home. On the first morning I asked if they would like tea. Their polite reply was: ‘Yes, sir, and it will be the same answer to every offer’.”
Then there’s the related minefield of getting someone’s order right. This scheme, described by Alexandra Elletson, sounded eminently sensible to me: “At break time, it got so confusing as to who had coffee or tea with milk, and with one or two sugars, that I purchased some black chalk mugs that you could write names and orders on. These made elevenses much more enjoyable.” Are you a serial circumlocutor? Send your responses here and the best of the bunch will feature in a future edition of this newsletter.
Please confirm in your reply that you are happy to be featured and that we have your permission to use your name. |
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1871 | Whit Monday becomes the first statutory bank holiday in Britain
1984 | Picket line riots before the Battle of Orgreave in South Yorkshire (the coverage of which you can see below on the front page the following day)
1999 | First time a space shuttle docks on the International Space Station
Birthdays: Mel B (51), Noel Gallagher (59), Rupert Everett (67)
Plus, in the news today, a garden at Windsor Castle is set to open to the public this summer. What planet was King Charles II’s redesign inspired by?
The newly renamed and redesigned garden will open to the public on July 16 |
1. Venus
2. Earth
3. Saturn
4. Neptune
Click one of the options to reveal the answer... |
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Find as many words as you can in today’s Panagram, including the nine-letter solution. Visit Telegraph Puzzles to play a range of head-scratching games, including The 1% Club, Cogs, and Quick, Mini or Cryptic Crosswords.
Yesterday’s Panagram was REFLEXIVE. Come back tomorrow for the solution to today’s puzzle. |
Please let me know what you think of this newsletter. You can email me your feedback here.
Thank you for reading. Have a fulfilling day and I hope to see you tomorrow.
Chris Evans, Editor |
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