Westminster blog

Well, for those of you who missed it, Gordon Brown’s mangy fluffy rabbit turned out to be a clutch of “guarantees” for young jobseekers.

There was a “January guarantee”, which he said was better than the “September guarantee”. Then there was a “one day guarantee” (which sounds dangerously like telling some that that they will get a job “one day”) and a “graduate guarantee”, which is nothing to do with Dustin Hoffman.

Finally, there was a new “jobs guarantee”, which is almost the same as the old “jobs guarantee”, but you don’t have to wait as long.

To be serious, all the measures basically ensure that if you have left school, university or find yourself out of work in your 20s, you’ll be given training or offered some work (even if it is created by the state) at an earlier stage than before.

But, once you can get past the thicket of guarantees jargon, there is a rather interesting economic debate behind all this. The initiatives have no price tag: the costs will be unveiled at the PBR. But we know how they will be funded. Brown is ploughing the money “saved” from lower-than-expected unemployment back into job initiatives, rather than paying down debt. It is a concrete example of how he places stimulating economic growth above deficit reduction.

What is the gamble? Firstly, that unemployment will stay low. Should it rise sharply in coming months, the “savings” will evaporate. Secondly, that these schemes actually work, otherwise we’ll have money wasted on some well-intentioned but ineffective programmes for years to come.

And lastly, whether the weight of debt catches up with the government before the economy picks up. How long will the credit ratings agencies put up with Brown ploughing money into growth, rather than deficit reduction?