Good to see Chris Davies MEP, the European Parliament’s lead on carbon capture & storage, not letting the financial crisis derail investment in new green technologies. He is looking for support for 10 billion euros worth of carbon allowances to finance large-scale clean coal demonstration projects. Davies was speaking at the launch in Brussels of [...]
Filed under: Energy, Environment | Comments Off
“Go back to Keir Hardie, and his maiden speech in the Commons in 1893 was about people working in return for their benefits. This has always been at the heart of what the Labour movement believes in.” James Purnell interviewed in Fabian Review, autumn 2008, p 10, (not on the Fabian website yet) I suppose [...]
Filed under: Labour market, Welfare | 2 Comments »
Recent events have spelt out the important role that regulation should play in ensuring fairness and stability in our economy – and suggest significant Government policy shifts. Could this conversion also provide the opportunity for Government to accept the case for sensible regulation at the bottom of the labour market?
Filed under: Inequality, Labour market | Comments Off
I don’t want to “hog the blog” but I couldn’t resist reproducing this gem from today’s Financial Times editorial:
Filed under: Tax | Comments Off
I work on the floor below Nigel and the sound of the gauntlet hitting the ground as he wrote that last post was deafening. So what economic policies should social democrats be championing now given that: a) we are about to enter a serious recession and we need to protect those who face hardship while [...]
Filed under: Economics, Energy, Environment, Manufacturing, Skills, Tax | 2 Comments »
Economic policy has been unfashionable on the left (in its broadest sense) for more than a decade. New Labour has never been very interested in developing a critique of the way the economy worked. Despite real efforts to relieve poverty through tax credits, the minimum wage and other measures, it has always wanted to be the [...]
Filed under: Economics | 4 Comments »
Some have described the past week as the most turbulent for the financial system since the Great Depression. As that week closes, we must renew our focus on building a strong, sustainable economy. In particular, consideration of the needs of the ‘real’ economy, the industries that create the (real) wealth and provide the (real) jobs, is necessary. With that [...]
Paul Mason highlights this superb but pretty scary Wall Street Journal article today. The WSJ isn’t exactly what you would call a liberal paper which makes one section towards the end of the article even more striking.
Filed under: Economics, Tax | 1 Comment »
We do not yet know how much the financial crisis will destabilise the ‘real’ economy where most people live and work, (usually in complete ignorance of what the recipients of big City bonuses actually do), but there is no doubt that we are in for a rough ride.
The TUC expects long-term unemployment (that is people unemployed over a year) to rise from 400,000 to 700,000 by the end of 2009. This is a depressing figure, but it wouldn’t be any higher than the level the Government inherited in 1997. For all the talk of records being set, I don’t expect anything like [...]
Filed under: Inequality, Labour market, Welfare | 1 Comment »
The main issue at this year’s Lib Dem conference, from which I have just returned, has been their new tax policy (set out in a speech earlier in the year by Nick Clegg here). In many ways it captures the difficulties the party faces in these changed political times.
Filed under: Tax | Comments Off
The developing crisis on Wall Street will raise a long and intense debate about state regulation of the capital markets. But the problem is not just the rules that govern trading, it is also the culture of major financial centres which in recent years has clearly become deeply irresponsible and even more herd like than in the [...]
Filed under: Corporate governance, Pensions | Comments Off
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