You gotta make a profit or two...

Famously Churchill said there were lies, damned lies and statistics. But there is also the lie about statistics which is intended to create false attitudes and that is what the words used by politicians recently are all about.

These words were even adopted by the media which, of itself, should be a health warning.

But the headlines proclaimed there were nine million people in the UK who were 'economically inactive' – shock!

What!?, said the Tory shires, 20% of our people are not contributing economically? What!?, they are costing the Department for Work millions?

All utter bollocks of course.

Let us start with what might (or even might not) be taken from those words – "economically inactive".

You are being asked to see this as something dreadful, a malaise of laziness and indolence in our society. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Indeed if the words have a real meaning to Tories it will be this – "not making a profit for someone".

That is what they really mean but cannot admit. But it is not even true in any context at all. Let us examine this magic number. 

First, of course it is not 9 million although very close at 8.9. And it is a range of people between 16 and 64.

So, for a start, 2.2million of these are students. Yes, that's right, the part time kids who serve you beer, coffee and burgers in the evenings and study most of the rest of the time. And far from "economically inactive" these days they have to pay for everything eventually with huge and highly profitable loans that will actually weigh heavy in future.

So for 8.9m read 6.7m... but hang on. A further 1.7million are tied to the house, raising children and keeping the home fires burning for a partner (and possibly kids) who are all economically active.

So now we are down to 5 million. Well, no because of those, 2.5 million are long term sick keeping doctors and nurses etc economically active.

So we are finally getting close to a usable number – in fact just 2.5 million... but no, not yet.

You see in that 16-64 group are some who have retired – in fact a cool 1.16million of them. And if they have retired it is because they can afford to and are thus still very active, economically and otherwise.

And so we get to the actual number of allegedly 'economically inactive' – which is about 1.4 million.

Guess what? That is very close to the number of people actually listed as out of work just now (1.382m).

So there you have it – unless you are making a profit for someone you do not count in the Conservative view of the economy. Mind you, they will also deny that it is really the workers who create the wealth which rich people steal.

EDIT: I have been asked for references and there are many; if you Google the words economically inactive and choose "news" you can have a lot of fun.