TORY cheers over an apparent minor drop in official unemployment figures cannot hide the fact that a grotesque and deliberate transfer of wealth is taking place.

Earning a wage is undoubtedly better than none but the question behind these statistics is, when is a job not a job?

We apparently now have 4.54 million “self-employed” workers in Britain.

But the suspiciously rapid upward spiral in this category leaves a huge question mark over the facts behind this headline figure.

A paltry 0.7 per cent rise in average wages over the past year — well below rises in the cost of living and itself a figure artificially inflated by huge payouts for the very richest — adds credence to the suggestion that this mass of the self-employed, while registered as such, are not actually earning a livelihood.

Falling real-term incomes, representing another degradation in the quality of life for the majority, underline the bankruptcy of this disgusting millionaires’ government.

Success on their terms is, of course, enriching the rich while the rest of us are left to fend for ourselves.

David Cameron’s endorsement of water cannon to keep the natives subdued is a clear signal of a self-enriching elite’s intention to hold onto the gains they have racked up at our expense under the guise of austerity.

For the majority the legacy of Con-Dem rule is complete failure.

Failure to tackle the country’s housing crisis. Failure to provide meaningful work for young and old alike. A direct and unrelenting assault on the public services that provide a better quality of life in our communities. Support for the rampant profiteering of tax-dodging firms, utilities and transport cartels, and the banking sector which has hoovered up so many billions of public cash for little return.

But as GMB general secretary Paul Kenny said to delegates at his union’s conference this week, there’s no guarantee enough voters will flock to Labour in disgust.

The damage inflicted on the party under Tony Blair, both through his betrayal of its working-class roots and the crazed and arrogant pursuit of wars abroad — the latest “result” for the filthy rich warmonger being Isil’s takeover of Mosul and Tikrit — is a poisonous legacy that will need a major policy shift to reverse.

Alienated former Labour voters and the non-voters who need to be inspired to the ballot box will not be coaxed come election day by a promised diet of watery gruel with a few meagre lumps of solid matter such as a short-term cap on energy prices.

Ed Miliband’s inability to date to ditch pro-austerity deadbeats such as Ed Balls, who continues to turn in his best “prudence” act in a shallow reprise of new Labour’s 1997 strategy, remains a millstone around the party’s neck.

There are few certainties about the outcome of next year’s elections.

But there is little doubt that an inability to turf out dinosaurs such as Balls and slippery careerist newcomers such as Chuka Umunna, and in the process open up clear red water from the Tories, is the fastest way to ensure a Labour failure and ordinary people’s continued descent into despair.

Come on, Miliband — there’s all to play for and everything to lose.