Despite constant, pithy assurances about the economy’s steady recovery under the watchful Eye of Sauron – see also: George Osborne’s pranged-out ham-fist, delivering punishing cuts to the kind of core public services people might actually require in order to live and keep that golden goose laying its sweet pre-zygote-stage bundles of fiscal protein – youth unemployment is as bad as it’s been in 20 years.
With around half a million people aged 16-24 currently out of work, you might find yourself wondering exactly how the economy could possibly be recovering when no one you know has a job; in short — who actually has all the jobs?
The answer, unsurprisingly, is much the same as it would be if you were a fictional middle-aged symbologist on the trail of an ancient code hidden in an artistic masterpiece by zealots, wondering who exactly is pursuing you across Europe’s premier religious hotspots: a power-hungry albino.
Sure, just under 15% of an entire demographic are unemployed, but don’t worry — Boris Johnson has your back. And four jobs. Four. Jobs. Boris Johnson has four jobs.
Having presumably reduced the cyclist death toll to zero and personally rounded up everyone using property to launder money, the Mayor of London, MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, and Telegraph columnist has finally found a way to spend those idle thumb-twiddling days, having received a £500,000 advance to champion the avant-garde and contribute to the contemporary cultural ecosystem by penning a new biography on Shakespeare.
That’s more or less a pound for every young person who can’t find work, alongside a £140,000 Mayoral salary, a yearly £250,000 for his column inches and £67,000 for servicing the good people of his West London constituency.
Thanks for keeping us afloat. We owe you one, BoJo.
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