Outrage over Young saying "the vast majority of people have never had it so good" - but surely he's right?

His comments are insensitive at best.

There are a million and a half more people on the dole than there was 3 years ago - their not better off. There are 3 million less jobs than there was 3 years ago - their not better off. Repossession are higher than 3 years ago - their not better off.

Lets look at mortgages and interest rates. Yes interest rates are a lot lower than they have been. But surely that is offset by much higher house prices. In terms of percentage of salary the payments to my mortgage provider is almost exactly the same as my parents in 1989.

Most people with mortgage are stuck in a deal that they cant get out because the banks now insist on 25% or 40% deposit to get the best deal and they dont have that amount (if any) equtity in their house due to falling house prices.

The only people who are better off than 3 years ago are those householders who have lived in their house for a number of years, have a tracker mortgage (and most tracker deals only last for 2 or 3 years), still have a job that has produced pay rises to offset higher inflation. That is not the vast majority of people.

This is not a knee jerk reaction, but an ill informed person living in the past with no idea of the pressures facing modern living and he was appointed government adviser by somebody else who doesn't have a clue!

I suppose you are right and we, if you are a Tory supporter or a member, do have it pretty good. Doesn't hurt if you are wealthy, or a banker, or a big corporation exec either.

The best answers so far are from Hal, Sheepy and Stevie Ojay. Soon even if some of the poorer or old are a bit better off right now it is no where near the same in real terms as it was even in the last recession. Prices higher, and just the cost of living as a whole going up. Huge numbers of people are going to be made jobless in the public sector which means that huge numbers and at the least twice as many will be made jobless in the private sector who service the public sector as well.

The government tells us we are in recession. David Cameron says that the people with the broadest shoulders and most able to pay will be the ones who help us recover from it. Sort of makes me wonder then why the big companies are all making huge profits, bankers and politicians are not experiencing the recession, and energy companies as a whole are putting prices up on all fuels while making stupendous profit, while the rest of us are struggling.

Point is that, yes, we are recovering from a recession but the only people paying the price of this, is not the elite and higher echelon of the population. It is those most unable to pay and don't have the broadest shoulders. The government has always failed, no matter the party, and they along with the other rich and those who make the rules become richer while the poorer get poorer. Now even the most blind can see, that more and more people are becoming a part of the latter group. Coming down from the level of working middle class. This is happening because politicians only support the wealthy such as bankers and big business who are the only ones truly represented in our government. So far the situation has only proved that this will always be the case if we continue to live under the so-called "mother of democracy" the Tories talk about. It is only talk. What they do to those less well off then themselves is and was true in any of the communist countries or a banana republic.

They made Lord Young resign for telling the truth about how it is for them. Wouldn't have looked so good if they had sacked him now would it?

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Of course Lord Young is right. Compared to Thatatorship, Gordon Brown’s recession was easy going. Unemployment, liquidations and repossessions are way down on the recessions of the eighties and nineties. Benchmark interest rates are low ( 0.5%) and repayments are less than before the recession so everybody with a mortgage and a job is better off now than they were before the recession. Compare this to interest rates of 17% in 1980 or 15% in 1990. The unemployment rate is still below 8%, compared to 11.9% in 1984 and 10.7% in 1993. In the eighties and nineties, unemployment claimants were TWICE what they are today at just over and just under 3,000,000 claimants and overall unemployment is still about 1,000,000 less. Peak claimant count in the eighties was 3.42 million.

This has been the worst recession and financial crisis since the 1930’s but proportionally has hit the country the least compared to other recessions. This is entirely due to Gordon Brown’s management of the situation, but the Labour Party isn’t going to give him the ‘credit’ for this or the Tories would spin it so it was them who was “crass and insensitive” and not Lord Young. Looking at the figures, just imagine what would have happened if the Tories had been in power and that they had gone along with the “let nature take it’s course” mantra ( all references to this have now been ‘wiped’ by the Andy Coulson spin machine. You used to be able to find loads of them about a year ago, fortunately after much searching I found the one below.) Yes, the debt would be less, but the population would be a lot worse off and there would be little hope of recovery for decades.

Just a pity Lord Young is about eight months too late to say it. I wonder will he be saying it in six months time. I disagree with what you say about the poor. It's alot more difficult today to live on JSA today, than say 20 years ago. Utility bills and travel take up a higher proportion of JSA today than then. 20 years ago. I could save a little money each week but I doubt I'd be able to do today, in fact I know I couldn't and would more than likely be falling deeply into debt.

It’s good to see some of the Tory old guard like Lord Young and Lord Heseltine out in force. Hopefully they’ll knock that young whippersnapper David Cameron into shape and show him the Tory manhood ropes in ‘How To Have A Recession Properly’.

Unemployment Rates 1971 - 2010-11-19

http://www.statistics4u-uk.com/html/unemployment_r...

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/Unemploy...

UK Interest Rates

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/economics/interest...

Let Nature Take It’s Course – Andrew Marr Show

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/andrew_marr_...

Repossessions since 1990

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10620980

I don't often agree with Confused Hal, but on this he's spot on.

Whilst I'm sure that there are some who are better off than ever - many people are facing redundancy. Others are facing pay cuts. The job market is very, very small, so when your employer cuts your salary (or worse) there is nothing whatsoever you can do about it. Those who are lucky enough to be employed are nervous about keeping hold of their jobs.

I'm in one of those jobs that's generally been regarded as "recession-proof". I'm learning to my cost that there's no such thing as I (and my colleagues) have just had my pay cut.

Never had it so good?

The vast majority of MP's have never had it so good in the expenses tub fiasco. As for your question is this man in cloud cuckoo land, my three sons have all been to university, all have good qualifications, and all are up to their necks in student debts. My eldest has now achieved a job - as a car salesman for just above the minimum wage. This had over forty applicants. The government in particular pick on the poor in this country, as they cannot defend themselves, and now we hear that they expect people who receive benefits to work for one pound per hour- this is nothing short of slavery, I wonder if the toffee nosed upper classes would do a forty hour week, for forty pounds wages! Go into any supermarket and you wouldn't even fill three bags with decent food for that, they must eat scraps these days. I feel sorry for youngsters these days, there is no chance to prosper. Unless of course you can con well, like the expenses pot availability. Lord Young is quite nuts in suggesting that people never had it so good. Crime figures will be alamingly rise soon, due to poverty and desperation from worried students and the worried poor.

Harold Macmillan said the same words in 1957 and that brought about his downfall.People don't like to be patronised especially when pension funds have collapsed and unemployment is soaring.Older people's hard earned savings were lost when the banks collapsed if the labour government hadn't bailed them out and now earn them a pittance with interest rates so low that they are forced to eat into capital to survive.Houses are impossible to sell and then only at a loss to recent buyers.The national health service is in disarray as are our schools and roads.Public transport is archaic and non functional for today's high pressure world.I've seen better times.Far better times and been far better off.Perhaps him and the other fat cats in government have never seen it so good but certainly not the working man

I suppose the vast majority of people haven't lost their jobs and their mortgage payments will have reduced with low interest rates. These people in that sense are better off and are in a majority.

However, it was a rather insensitive thing to say when a significant number of people have lost their jobs and are struggling to makes ends meet and the comment shows a surprising political naivety for an old political dog like Lord Young

There is a lot of truth in what Hal says and I think he was kind to say Young's remarks were insensitive rather than crass stupidity. Tells us something about Cameron that he picks these people as advisers when their are loads of people from the real world who would tell him how many beans make five !

The problem I have with Hal is that he knows the recession slide started under Brown who didn't do enough to stop it because he was afraid of the political consequences for Labour. Now Milliband says he knows the solutions to all our problems, it's a pity he didn't tell Gordon before he got the chop.

No, what he means is that he and his cronies have never had it so good. I wish that they could be forced to live for a while on a fixed income, either benefits or pensions, with ever increasing taxes and prices.

I don't see where you get the idea that we have a good economic outlook, with another million being forced out of work, and people being expected to work for nothing. As for low interest rates, they do not benefit small to moderate savers.