Problem solved

IN ONE fell swoop, the Scottish Government has solved the country's costly NEET problem - by renaming it.

The education secretary Fiona Hyslop has rejected the acronym, which means "not in education, employment or training". She believes it "labels" unemployed youngsters.

Instead she refers to the estimated 35,000 teenagers who choose to claim benefits rather than study or work, as those in need of "more choices, more chances".

A study by Westminster's education department in 2002 calculated each NEET youngster cost the country £45,000 in benefits.

How is this going to achieve anything? How does it label youngsters? I have never heard anyone talking about NEETs or calling layabouts that.

The SNP seem to like rebranding exercises that don’t achieve anything. They seem more useless and politically correct than Labour and I didn’t think that was possible.