Posts under ‘Employment’

It’s the country’s deficit not the government’s that matters – devalue to re-industrialise

by Bryan Gould.

The imminent crisis in what is still laughingly called the British steel industry is being greeted just as other similar developments have been for decades – with consternation and anger, with concern for the implications for social cohesion in general and for workers’ families in particular, but with no recognition that this is just the […]

Rotten Tory ideology is laid bare by crisis in steel

by Michael Burke.

In order to defeat Osbornomics it is necessary to understand it. A central tenet is that the private sector is the key to prosperity and that therefore everything possible should be done to promote and encourage it. The state should shrink in order to release the inherent dynamism of the private sector. The argument runs […]

Labour right-wing still in the austerity dead end

by Michael Burke.

Rachel Reeves, a former Labour shadow secretary for work and pensions, has produced a short note for Progress which has been hailed in the right wing media, and by the Labour right, as ‘an alternative Budget’. The New Statesman was perhaps the most excitable, describing Reeves as the shadow chancellor in waiting. All of this […]

Labour, John McDonnell and the New Economics

by David Pavett.

Once the surprise and the shock of Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader had sunk in, many (including me) became impatient for policy initiatives and membership involvement in policy formation to come to the fore. Clearly cutting through media hostility is a major task but I find it difficult to see that more could not […]

Brexit, in or out, is far less important than investment to end the UK productivity crisis

by Michael Burke.

The latest official data show how far the UK economy is lagging behind other industrialised economies in terms of productivity, in this case output per hour worked. There is too a long-standing discussion amongst economists in Britain about the so-called ‘productivity puzzle’. There is a genuine crisis of productivity in Britain. But in reality there […]

Welcome to a constructive critique of Corbynomics from Liam Byrne

by Phil Burton-Cartledge.

Something more significant than the move against Andrew Fisher happened on the right of the Labour Party last week. It was Tuesday morning, in fact, and the occasion was Liam Byrne’s speech to the Policy Network. Of course, MPs, particularly former ministers, give speeches to think tanks all the time and most float under the […]

Iain Duncan Smith demands as many disabled people work as able-bodied

by Michael Meacher.

As part of the government’s plan to extract £12bn from social security benefits, IDS has announced his latest target is “the disability employment gap”. According to analysis of official ONS figures, this represents the difference between the number of disabled people who are in employment (48%) and the figure for the general population (73%). The […]

Three-quarters of jobs created in UK went to workers from EU

by Michael Meacher.

UK unemployment, which is still as high as 1,850,000, is now starting to rise again. Combined with the jobs standstill, the lack of momentum in pay makes this the most worrying set of labour market figures for a long time. What is equally disturbing is that almost all the increase in employment since the 2008-9 […]

Exposing corporate hypocrites

by Andy Newman.

A key concept in modern marketing is that of Brand Promise: the commitments made by a company that seek to align it to the expectations and preferences of its target market, to provide competitive advantage. In particular, some companies seek to position themselves as “ethical”, whether in relation to avoiding controversial business sectors, such as […]

Cameron-Osborne’s vendetta against the young could prove their downfall

by Michael Meacher.

Osborne really has got it in for young people – unless of course they are poised to inherit their grandparents’ £1 million home or will benefit from a higher inheritance tax threshold. It will be young people who cop it from changes to universal credit that will deduct benefits faster as they earn more. That […]

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