Imagine the howls of protest from the left if a pro free enterprise group had taken over the government of the EU and were presiding over mass unemployment on the current scale. Yet today, with the big government brigade in charge of the EU, it is apparently acceptable that 18,965,000 people of working age are unemployed in the Euro zone.

No-one in the EU government seems to get cross about it. They do not seem to do any of the obvious things you would do if you wanted to bring unemployment down. Instead of making it easier for business to generate jobs they think up new ways to tax and regulate.

Instead of mending the banks and easing money policy they prolong the agony brought about by broken banks and demand they lend less. Instead of creating an energy market with prices that match our leading world competitors, they happily pile on more and more cost and tax to energy to make us as uncompetitive as possible.

The prospects have been even worse for the young. Almost one quarter of people under the age of 25 are out of work in the Euro area. In places like Spain and Greece half the young generation are workless. Still no-one seems to wake up in the EU government and ask why, let alone propose doing something that might make a difference to this lamentable state of affairs.

The EU goes about its business of feather bedding the governing class and leaving the many to fend for themselves in a malfunctioning economy and currency union that sensible people warned them could not work.

When we hear from this elite that letting people vote and have their say, as in Switzerland on migration, is dangerous, it is no wonder so many people in the UK have had enough of their arrogance and incompetence.

Mr. Redwood's writing is re-posted here by his kind permission. This and other articles are available at johnredwoodsdiary.com