The government’s latest attack on jobs announced today, cutting the period before major redundancies can take place from 90 to 45 days and excluding fixed-term contracts from collective redundancy agreements when they end, is yet another gratuitous swipe at employment rights with callous disregard of the real needs of industry for growth. It will not […]
Posts under ‘Uncategorized’
Labour must listen to Europe’s trade unions
Nov 16th, 2012 by Ben Folley.As part of the European TUC Day of Action, its General Secretary Bernadette Segol appeared on Radio 4′s Today programme on Wednesday alongside former Labour MEP Richard Corbett, now advising European Council leader Herman Van Rompuy.
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Whistleblower’s info on gas price-fixing shows corruption of private markets
Nov 14th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.The Guardian’s revelations today about Libor-like price-fixing in the gas markets are explosive for two reasons. First, why has this only come to light publicly through the action of an ex-trader turned whistleblower? Why have the official UK regulators, FSA and Ofgem, who were alerted to this problem months if not years ago taken no […]
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The LRC: more pragmatic but still too remote from Labour’s mainstream?
Nov 13th, 2012 by Jon Lansman.On Saturday morning, 200 members and delegates at the LRC conference in London passed a statement, moved by John McDonnell MP, from the LRC’s National Committee which included clear opposition to austerity “even in diluted form“, as well as support for the TUC’s “look at the practicalities of a general strike,” which it says “cannot just be […]
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Heseltine right on economic intervention but wrong on funding
Nov 2nd, 2012 by Michael Meacher.Heseltine (‘No Stone Unturned’) unapologetically advocates an industrial strategy with an important role for the State – an unexceptional proposal anywhere else except in Cameron’s Britain. As this Tory ex-Deputy Prime Minister frankly acknowledges: “I know of no other government that does not drive its growth agenda in the interest of its own economy”.
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Labour must reject Trident
Oct 31st, 2012 by Michael Meacher.Hammond’s jumping the gun by pledging a £350m contract to signal the Tories’ embrace of a Trident replacement should be met by a resolute pronouncement from Labour that neither the arguments nor the figures stand up to any serious scrutiny. At the present time the biggest danger we face is the threat of terrorism on our […]
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Phone-hacking at Mirror could be last straw for self-regulation
Oct 24th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.Next month Lord Justice Leveson will unveil his report on press ethics and governance, and in that context the lawsuits now being taken out against Mirror Group Newspapers could hardly have come at a worse time for those wanting to head off reform. If other potential victims flood in with their own legal actions as […]
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Launching this afternoon: the successor to the Partisan coffee house
Oct 6th, 2012 by Newsdesk.Tony Benn will preside this afternoon over the launch of Firebox, a new cafe and cultural space for left-wing thought. The cafe, in Cromer Street, King’s Cross, is a project of the socialist cultural organisation Counterfire. The launch party begins at 4.30pm, and will also feature Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, Green leader Natalie Bennett and […]
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The next key objectives for Labour
Oct 5th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.After the euphoria of Ed Miliband’s commanding speech, the reality of tomorrow’s agenda. It’s all very well to promise legislation if the banks don’t carry out the Vickers Commission’s prescription of building Chinese Walls between the investment and retail arms, but even if they did, the City would sidestep the walls in no time through […]
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Tories ramp up the class warfare
Sep 5th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.How do you deal with the deepest recession for nearly a century? According to the Tories, ignore the real cause – a massive lack of demand within the economy – and instead hammer the under-class whose fast-shrinking incomes contract further still the level of aggregate demand on which growth depends.
