Cole on the Dole
As unemployment hits three million, John Cole presents an investigation into the lengthening dole queues. In his first major documentary, the BBC's former political editor travels around the country to measure the human cost on the jobless of the policies he has long covered from Westminster, and asks what can be done to end their despair.
Cole draws comparisons with the 1930s, but whereas then unemployment was mostly a northern, working-class phenomenon, now it affects both north and south and "the middle class has become a sackable class," too. As a result, he discovers a new middle-class empathy with the long-term unemployed of the north. Producer Mark Wakefield, Editor Peter Horrocks