Illustration by John Sadler www.johnsadlerillustration.com 

• MY blood pressure is always raised when I hear a government minister defending the UK’s abysmal economic performance over the past 14 years by citing the record number of new jobs that have been created.

Leaving aside that job creation is not something they are entitled to claim credit for (indeed they want us to believe that they are busily cutting public sector jobs), the point is that a substantial number of these “new” employees could be more accurately described as serfs than paid servants in the capitalist model.

The supposed element of choice of selling one’s labour in our mythical free market is demonstrably absent.

Work for a pittance or starve is a more apposite summation of their so-called “choice”. And, thereafter, we slide into an even more stark and destructive choice of starve to death or steal!

They used to say: “A fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay.” But perhaps that would be considered extremist these days?

F EVANS, WC1