Labour launched its campaign slogan today – a Future Fairer to all.

For those who watched Question Time this week and saw the raw anger of local people in the Middlesbrough audience against the loss of 1600 jobs on Teesside as the Corus steel plant is mothballed, might be forgiven for comparing the slogan with reality. Thousands of other jobs may follow as a consequence.

The anger and hurt in the audience was palpable – and the question was – how is fair of Labour to plunge zillions into the banks to save them – whilst this key industry on Teesside is let go to the wall?

It shows the reality versus the spin. For if there is any way out of the recession it is jobs and it is not only unfair – but it is an insanity to not try and preserve local jobs in an area that is suffering when the costs of dealing with the aftermath – unemployment, depression, retraining, redevelopment etc will cost far more in the long term and in terms of peoples’ lives.

One woman in the audience made the hugely powerful point – that even if those who are young enough to be retrained and find a future – for those over 50 its basically curtains.

Labour may hope that people won’t notice reality – won’t look at the statistics that shows that the gap between rich and poor is still widening, that social mobility is worse now and that if you are born poor now you are more likely to end up poor than you were thirty years ago.

I think people are not so easily fooled and will tell Labour exactly what to do with their new shiny slogan and where to put it.