John O'Neill

The unemployment rate fell to 5.1 per cent in the three months to November, putting it at the lowest level since 2006 – and back to its average over the six years before the crisis. Back to what the Bank of England regards as the "equilibrium" rate. [datawrapper chart="http://static.spectator.co.uk/DUFV6/index.html"] The other side of the coin is that pay growth is down too. Excluding bonuses it's fallen to a sluggish 1.9 per cent year-on-year, around half its pre-crisis rate. Workers’ spending power is still growing – but that's driven by low inflation. [datawrapper chart="http://static.spectator.co.uk/u0fNr/index.

Britain stayed in deflation in October, with the Consumer Prices Index falling by 0.1 per cent over the year. So far this year inflation has averaged just 0.02 per cent – the longest run of low inflation since the 1930s. https://twitter.com/George_Osborne/status/666557993006288896 Citi says inflation is likely to turn positive again next month as the effects of last's years oil price nosedive falls out of the 12-month change – but with sluggish global growth, the cost of goods falling and inflation in the cost of services running at just 2.2 per cent, it looks like low inflation will be with us for a long time. [datawrapper chart="http://static.spectator.co.uk/y0IrQ/index.

After disappointing figures last month, public borrowing in September came in lower than forecast, at £9.4bn, figures published by ONS today show. VAT, income and corporation tax receipts were all up on last year, and despite the government debt pile growing, interest payments fell by £420m. [datawrapper chart="http://static.spectator.co.uk/z63H9/index.html"] But it still look like it will be tough for George Osborne to meet his borrowing target for the year. Borrowing over the last six months is 14 per cent down on the same period last year – but over the next six months it would have to be a huge 36 per cent lower than last year in order for the Chancellor to meet the £69.5bn target.

Employment figures out today show that the number of people in work rose by 42,000 in the three months to July, and the number of unemployed rose by 10,000 to 1.82 million. Earnings are growing strongly too, up by 2.9 per cent over the year for the whole economy, and by 3.4 per cent in the private sector. [datawrapper chart="http://static.spectator.co.uk/NB83M/index.html"] The Chancellor has used the numbers to warn of the risk Jeremy Corbyn poses to the economy. He said: ‘It is welcome news that pay packets are rising and jobs are being created. With wages up 2.9% over the year and inflation low, working people have received the fastest real terms rise in over a decade. At 73.5%, the employment rate is the highest it has been.

Inflation slumped back to zero in the year to August, down from a rise of 0.1 per cent in July, figures from the Office for National Statistics show, making seven months of little or no inflation. The costs of food, energy and imported goods have been falling, pulling inflation away from the two percent target. [datawrapper chart="http://static.spectator.co.uk/XXn28/index.html"] Even stripping out some more volatile components—energy, food and tobacco—‘core’ inflation fell to one per cent, easing pressure on the Bank of England to raise interest rates.

No self-congratulatory tweets from George Osborne this morning: The UK has seen its first quarter-on-quarter rise in unemployment for two years, figures released by the ONS show. The number of people in employment fell by 67,000 in the three months from May to March, and the number who are unemployed rose by 15,000. The unemployment rate rose from 5.5 to 5.6 per cent. So – is this the end of the recovery? Well hang on. This is one fall, so it's a bit soon to ridicule David Cameron's target of 2m more jobs over this parliament. After all, nobody forecast that there would be 2m jobs created over the last parliament.

When do the descendants of immigrants go from being migrants to being natives? That's the question raised by a MigrationWatch UK study which says that the impact of immigration on the 4.6 million increase in the UK's population since the millennium has been ‘substantially underestimated’. Why? Because the government's statistics agency doesn't attribute the 1.3 million children born to foreign-born parents to migration. Sir Andrew Green, the chair of MigrationWatch, said that: ‘It is now undeniable that the massive scale of net migration has been the main cause of our population growth and that, in the future, our population growth is likely to be almost entirely due to migration.

It's been called rousing, barnstorming, the speech of his life. Gordon Brown's passionate message for Scotland, which he delivered to an enthused crowd at the Maryhill Community Central Hall in Glasgow, has certainly caught people's attention: There are people on the streets of Glasgow talking about Gordon Brown's speech. — Isabel Hardman (@IsabelHardman) September 17, 2014   You can watch it above – it's well worth the 13 minutes – and here are some of the best bits: ‘Let us tell the undecided, the waverers, those not sure how to vote, let us tell them what we have achieved together. We fought two world wars together – and there is not a cemetery in Europe that does not have Scots, English, Welsh and Irish lying side-by-side.

Rationality doesn't come cheap -- not if you're buying Richard Dawkins' brand. In this week's Spectator, Andrew Brown examines the costly cult of personality that has grown up around the professor; and the stratospheric cost of supporting his work. But your money doesn't just aid Dawkins' monstering of tithe-bloated religion -- there are discounts and money-can-buy treats for non-believers too. So, what do you get? For $85 a month or $1,000 a year - Reason Circle membership Invitation to member-only event with personalities from Dawkin's foundation A discount for all purchases in the richarddawkins.

At PMQs David Cameron attacked Ed Miliband for his deputy Harriet Harman's comments, made on an LBC phone-in show on Monday, that she wanted to see higher taxes on middle-income earners.