Cameron’s seeking to explain away yesterday that the national economy was now shrinking by 0.2% in the last quarter of 2011 won’t wash. He blamed high inflation, Labour ‘mismanagement’ and the eurozone problems. High inflation is irrelevant to a contraction of national output which is clearly down to lack of demand because of squeezed incomes. So far from Labour mismanagement being the cause, it was Labour relaunching growth in the first half of 2010 after the deep slump of 2008-9 that produced an economy growing at more than 1% a year in the second half of 2010, which Tory austerity managed first to flatline through the first half of 2011 and then actually to contract at the end of 2011. As for the eurozone crisis last summer, the UK economy was already falling into decline up to a year previously. Cameron’s points are all bogus. Continue reading →
Minus 0.2 percent! Cameron can run but he can’t hide
Jan 27th, 2012by Michael Meacher
Could Leanne Wood enable Plaid to challenge Labour in Wales like the SNP has in Scotland?
Jan 26th, 2012by Jon Lansman
Nominations closed today in the race for the leadership of Plaid Cymru with Leanne Wood emerging as the 4-5 favourite according to online bookmaker Paddy Power. She faces three of her fellow assembly members in the contest — former MP and now AM for Mid and West Wales, Simon Thomas, another former MP and leader in the 1980s, Lord Elis-Thomas, and Elin Jones, former Welsh rural affairs minister and, at evens, probably her main opponent. Continue reading →
Greenspan versus Marx
Jan 26th, 2012by David Osler
A lot of people on the free market right have a simplistic two-word explanation for why the world economy is currently close to the edge of a frighteningly steep cliff: Alan Greenspan.
Throw those Marxist and Keynesian textbooks out the window, people. We are where we are because the former chairman of the Federal Reserve responded to the dot com crash with a cheap money policy that fed the real estate bubble that triggered the credit crunch. Continue reading →
The cause of the slump is still misunderstood
Jan 26th, 2012by Michael Meacher
The news that the public sector net debt has now passed the £1 trillion mark isn’t really news since it’s long been on track to reach £1.4 trillion by 2014. What is far more disturbing is that the government, in its obsession to cut the public sector deficit regardless, has completely ignored the impact this is having on the private sector deficit in driving the slump. Continue reading →
The million pound benefit cap
Jan 25th, 2012by David Osler
I did realise that Asda sold shedloads of baked beans and breakfast cereal, but until this morning I did not know that the UK wing of Wal-Mart had moved into the market for economic indicators as well.
But thanks to Retail Week, I am now aware of something called the Asda Income Tracker, which measures discretionary spending after all the big bills are paid. Continue reading →
The real divisions in the Labour Party and what Ed should do about it
Jan 25th, 2012by Jon Lansman
Most Labour party members are, above all, loyal to their party. They have a strong inclination to back their leaders, even when they disagree with what they’ve said or done. And disagree they did, by and large, when Ed Balls announced that “the starting point….is we’re going to have to keep all these cuts” and accept real-term cuts in public sector pay. And if they didn’t then, like Eoin Clarke at the Green Benches, they did as soon as they saw Labour’s support slide in the polls.
And so it was, at yesterday’s meeting of Labour’s national executive, elected to represent the views of the party and its affiliates, that only one voice was raised in support of the change in Labour’s policy – that of Luke Akehurst. Continue reading →
The real reason the polls are up
Jan 25th, 2012by Michael Meacher
Why are the Tories now standing at their highest polls since the election? This has of course given Ed Miliband’s Blairite enemies, both in the Shadow Cabinet and the PLP, the chance to dump on the leadership which is always the silver lining for them when there’s bad news. They like to claim that, given the government’s vicious austerity programme, Labour should now be 10-15 points ahead, not 5 points behind. But the truth, as so often, is very different and much more complex than that. Continue reading →
NUPE, Leadership and Democracy
Jan 25th, 2012by Andy Newman
This official history of NUPE from 1928 to 1993 (when it merged with COHSE and NALGO to form UNISON) deserves to be a standard reference book for those interested in the evolution of modern unions, particularly in the public services. It is comprehensively researched, although mainly from the written records, rather than tapping into the rich vein of oral history; and for those of us who were members of NUPE (as I proudly was between 1979 and 1981) it does capture the ethos of the union. Continue reading →
Give us back a fair process for choosing Labour parliamentary candidates
Jan 24th, 2012by Peter Willsman
Regular visitors may have read here that the Labour Party is piloting a revised and truncated procedure for the selection of prospective parliamentary candidates. This has been operated in 26 seats identified by Labour’s national executive as ‘early bird’ marginals. The executive’s Organisation Committee has undertaken to properly review this pilot lot this year in time for party conference. A thorough review is vital because the pilot has major deficiencies. Continue reading →
Labour’s position on capping benefits
Jan 24th, 2012by Jon Lansman
Is Labour’s position on capping benefits a carefully-crafted thought-through policy from Liam Byrne, the man charged with overseeing Labour’s policy review? Or it is just a bit of triangulated political posturing from the man responsible for the “no money left” 2010 ‘gag’? We’ll leave it to your judgement.
Labour’s front bench team yesterday explained its position to Labour MPs like this: Continue reading →
