Further, there are things that can be done to mitigate those problems over the wider area: a common treasury, that full economic union, inter-regional transfers and a mobile labour force.

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So a fall in that rate could be seen as beneficial, as it might make labour more mobile and thus lower the unemployment rate.

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So the rise in the private rental market is making the UK labour force more mobile: which will, in time, lead to unemployment being lower than it would otherwise be.

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That would mean taxing capital and labour differently, according to how mobile each is.

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By taking in eastern countries with lower labour costs and workers who are far more mobile than their western cousins, the EU in effect brought globalisation within its own borders.

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The plan initially suggested when Labour was in government was for a giant database to store the details of all mobile phone calls and internet traffic, such as who called who, or who emailed who when, but not the content of the phone calls or emails.

BBC: A person using a computer