They've made history, all right

Failure because neither of the parties now consttuting the coalition managed a respectable majority in their own right.

And lust for power because the temptation to seize power by entering a coalition based solely on expediency proved, in the end, irresistible for both sides of the Con-Dem nightmare alliance.

But, principled or not, the deadly duo of David Cameron and Nick Clegg announced their union to the world.

The Daily Mail described the first Downing Street press conference by the Cameron-Clegg team as a "great love-in.

Sharing jokes, exchanging meaningful glances and referring to each other chummily as Nick and Dave, they couldn't have looked happier," the paper crooned, as the happy couple pledged to make history with their new coalition.

Well, whatever else, they have certainly managed that.

And they have managed it spectacularly.

But it's not a history that they or their supporters have any right to feel proud of.

Quite the reverse, in fact.

Figures issued today by the Office for National Statistics outline a historically shabby and shameful set of circumstances.

Overall, unemployment jumped by 44,000 in the final three months of 2010 to just under 2.5 million, a jobless rate of 7.9 per cent.

The youth unemployment rate has hit 20.5 per cent following a 66,000 increase to 965,000, the highest figures since records began in 1992.

The number of people classed as economically inactive rose by 93,000 over the quarter to 9.36 million, a rate of 23.4 per cent of the working age population.

This included 1.57 million who retired before the age of 65, the highest figure since 1993.

Public sector employment fell by 33,000 to six million in the quarter to September.

An increase of 17,000 in the number of people out of work for over a year took the total to 833,000.

The number of jobs in the economy fell by 170,000 in the year to September - down to 30 million.

And the number of people working part-time because they could not find full-time jobs increased by 44,000 to 1.19 million, the highest total since records began in 1992.

All of that's certainly bloody historic - it's historically disastrous.

You've got to love the response from those cuddly Tory ministers.

Believe it or not, they said that they "welcomed news that the labour market was stabilising after a difficult last few months."

If that's stability, I think we can do without it, thank you very much, gentlemen.

Too much of that stability and we'll go flat broke.

Work and Pensions Minister Chris Grayling said: "The rise in the number of vacancies is particularly encouraging. The challenge for us now is to push ahead with our welfare reforms so we start to move more people off benefits to take advantage of those vacancies."

Mr Grayling's selective sensitivities clearly stopped him hearing that the rise in vacancies was purely temporary as a result of casual work on the next census.

His memory is also failing since it can't possibly escape him that his government's policies in the public sector are designed to reduce, rather than expand the number of public-sector jobs by trashing national and local authority funding for them.

There's only so long that you can keep on whingeing about a problem that you've inherited, Mr Grayling.

Especially since your policies are exacerbating rather than solving it.

But, chin up, Mr Grayling, there's one record we'll cheerfully help you break and that's the record for the fastest collapse of a coalition in history.

All you have to do is leave...