Last week Tony Blair professed bafflement at the rise – on both sides of the Atlantic – of popular movements by people who in Blair’s view choose to “rattle the cage”. I think this is a mischaracterisation. Those who have been energised into supporting Sanders, Corbyn and movements such as Podemos and Syriza want to […]
Posts under ‘Economy’
How we are punished for not responding to George’s not-so marvellous medicine
Mar 6th, 2016 by Sian Errington.In February, the Guardian revealed that from a £300 million ‘relief fund’ to help local councils struggling with the scale of funding cuts demanded of them 83% of the funds will go to Conservative run councils. The five most deprived local authorities in the country – Middlesbrough, Liverpool, Manchester, Knowsley and Hull – are also […]
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Numb and number: where the Big Short falls short
Mar 2nd, 2016 by Ann Pettifor.As this goes to press, global capital markets appear to be stabilizing after another period of intense, and scary stock market volatility. This set the context for the arrival in Britain of Adam McKay’s The Big Short – a film about the American sub-prime mortgage meltdown, based on the book by Michael Lewis. It could […]
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Is Labour ready for another economic crisis?
Mar 2nd, 2016 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Ellie Mae O’Hagan writes that the Tories are politically prepared for another economic crisis, should one hit. Looking at the lack of profitable opportunities for capital presently, the ongoing investment strike, stock markets that went up and then came down, and the inflating credit bubble you’d be daft to rule one out with certainty over […]
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Healthcare US style… or how neoliberalism really works
Feb 29th, 2016 by Richard Falk.Richard Falk is retired and lives in Santa Barbara, Califormnia Along with several million, I suffer from the eye disease known as glaucoma. It can be managed, rather than cured, by taking eye drops several times a day. Based on the advice of my doctor, I rely on Azopt and Lumigen, two drugs produced by […]
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Brexit, in or out, is far less important than investment to end the UK productivity crisis
Feb 27th, 2016 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 […]
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Yvette Cooper is wrong about nationalisation
Feb 25th, 2016 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.This was bound to come back at some point. In a speech this week to launch The Changing Work Centre – a new think tank looking at, you guessed it, the changing nature of work – Yvette Cooper admonished Jez and John McDonnell for talking about re-nationalisation. “Labour must not get drawn into touting yesterday’s […]
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Labour’s economic alternative should centre on a national investment bank
Feb 16th, 2016 by Michael Burke and John Ross.Labour is now carrying out extremely effective campaigning against Tory policies – on tax credits, on the sweetheart Google taxation deal, in support of the junior doctors and pinning the responsibility for the crisis in the NHS squarely on the Tories. This excellent work needs to continue and be strengthened. But in the forthcoming budget […]
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No hiding place for Osborne
Jan 30th, 2016 by Matt Willgress.As George Osborne gets his excuses in early for the troubles to come, now is the time to expose the failures of ideologically driven austerity, writes Matt Willgress of the Labour Assembly Against Austerity The British mainstream media is now so clearly biased in favour of the ruling party it can sometimes seem as if […]
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Is Labour a campaigning party, or one that follows public opinion?
Jan 27th, 2016 by Bryan Gould.I had the pleasure of working with Deborah Mattinson during the 1987 and 1992 election campaigns when she undertook qualitative polling for the Labour Party. She was expert in interpreting what could be gleaned from focus groups, and those running the campaign, myself included, always listened attentively to what she had to say. Politicians always […]
