Like the John Lewis Partnership he used to run, Sir Charlie Mayfield, who has just completed the government’s ‘Keep Britain Working’ review, comes across as terribly nice and civilised. It’s just a shame he can’t quite bring himself to put the boot in and deal properly with the problem of mass worklessness he correctly identifies. Had the job been given to a more ruthless business operator – perhaps someone from Amazon, Aldi or one of the other businesses which is steadily devouring John Lewis’s lunch – government might actually have a hope of a workable solution.

Mayfield all but ignores the real problem: it has become far too easy to claim out-of-work benefits

Mayfield is not wrong in his diagnosis. The UK economy is being dragged down by an epidemic of worklessness. Compared with 2019

See Full Page