Why is Cameron repeating his job creation lies?

David Cameron today claimed again that half a million new private sector jobs had been created since the election. This claim has been going around for a while, and Cameron last repeated it at last weeks PMQs.

Unfortunately, it’s completely false. For the maths to work, the statistics for the second quarter 2010 must be included; statistics which include, and are largely buoyed up by, the period before the election.

Channel 4′s FactCheck blog reports:

The ONS doesn’t break the numbers down month by month. But after much hassling from FactCheck, the ONS pointed us to the only set of figures that give any indication of the pattern of job creation over that quarter.

These are “experimental” labour force figures that the ONS produces, but doesn’t put its name to. And what they show is a massive rise in overall employment of 129,000 in April 2010, but a drop of 89,000 in June.

Even if we were incredibly generous to the PM, and split the jobs across the three months evenly, he’d still be some way off the 500,000 mark.

All of which leaves very little to support the idea that the private sector is “far outweighing” public sector losses.

All of this came out last week, so why was Cameron repeating this provably untrue claim today?

You can watch the video of the exchange below:

As Ed Miliband pointed out, Cameron has also had an abject failure over his regional growth funds, issuing eleven times as many press releases as they are creating jobs (22 to two). A far cry from the claims made when the project launched:

The Government expects over 27,000 jobs to be directly created and safeguarded, with close to a further 100,000 jobs in associated supply chains and local economies.

The £450m being invested by the Government through the first round of the RGF is expected to leverage more than £2.5bn of private sector investment.

£450 million for two businesses – this example here particularly galling; it’s that much-paraded Conservative feel for business in action.

See also:

• Fees, cuts… Is this what Cameron means by “giving young people back their future”? – Shamik Das, September 14th 2011

• Cameron’s fantasy list of NHS reform backers – Shamik Das, September 7th 2011

• Spineless Cameron fails to speak out against Brooks, Coulson or BSkyB deal – Shamik Das, July 6th 2011

• PMQs cancer row: MacMillan back Miliband – Shamik Das, June 15th 2011

• PMQs: Prime Minister’s (selective) Quotations – Shamik Das, February 9th 2011