Gordon Brown, employment and immigration - the truth?

This morning in his interview with John Humphrys on the Today programme (listen here from 18:00 to for the next week) Gordon Brown made some rather odd remarks regarding the amount of jobs his government had created and how many had gone to immigrants. Here's my transcript:

GB: "... we're getting more people back into work and therefore there are savings from people not staying.."
JH (interrupting): "mostly foreigners actually (but there we are)..."
GB (reacting to interruption): "John I think that's a bit unfair"
JH (interrupting): "Well 97% of new jobs going to foreigners"
GB: "That is just simply not the case, there are two and a half million more people in work in this country.."
JH (interrupting): "That's not the point, there are more people in work, but half of them are foreigners, anyway go on..."
GB: Jon I think you are going too far there, because if you look at the numbers of people who've got into work over the past few years; it's young people... the over 50s... more women working... more single parents working..."

So what's the truth of it? The Mail reports claims that

'Figures suggested an extraordinary 98.5 per cent of 1.67million new posts were taken by immigrants.'

The Express reports that:

'Official figures revealed that more than nine out 10 of the 1.7 million jobs added to the economy since 1997 have gone to workers from overseas.

They also showed that nearly 300,000 fewer British-born workers were employed in the private sector than when Labour came to power.'

What we need is for an interviewer to get Gordon Brown in a studio and ask him to accept that whilst 2.5 million jobs might well have been created since 1997, 98% of them have gone to foreigners. Asking Gordon Brown once, twice or even three times in not enough as he will just evade the question. I suggest that someone might need to 'do a Paxman' and keep asking the same question over and over again until the interview ends. Maybe that is why Gordon 'fearty' Brown has refused to be interviewed by Jeremy Paxman in during the general election campaign - Gordon 'Courage' Brown? Don't make me laugh!

The trouble is that this is one of the main problems with Gordon Brown, he does not answer questions and for the good of democracy he needs to be tackled properly on this issue and others.




As an aside, let's look at Hansard's record for Wednesday's PMQs:

'Q7. [325645] Damian Green (Ashford) (Con): The Prime Minister once notoriously promised "British jobs for British workers". Can he confirm that the latest official figures, produced this morning, show that the number of UK-born private sector workers is several hundred thousand lower today than it was in 1997?

The Prime Minister: Net migration to this country has been falling as a result of actions that we have been taking, and it has fallen in the last three years. It is falling because there are more people here locally getting the jobs that are available. The Conservatives should think twice about their policy on quotas for migration, because the very businesses that they are quoting want to be able to bring people into this country to do the jobs that are necessary. We propose the Australian points system on migration. The Conservatives' policy of a quota for immigration, without giving a number, would do great damage to British business.'