Public sector pensions are under sustained attack. Hardly a day goes by without a claim from an employer group, opposition politician or right wing pressure group that they are unaffordable, out of control and unreformed. Worse, they often go on to suggest that there are quick and easy savings to be made by cutting or [...]

Filed under: Pensions, Public services | 2 Comments »

Today ONS has published the fascinating The effects of taxes and benefits on household income, 2007/08 – summarised here or in its full 38 page glory here.

Filed under: Inequality, Tax | 2 Comments »

New data suggests that the picture I painted earlier on in the month of steady progress in narrowing the disability employment gap was a little simplistic.
Nigel Meager, from the Institute for Employment Studies has pointed out that using the figures for a different definition of disability actually shows a decline in disabled people’s employment [...]

Filed under: Equality, Recession | Comments Off

There’s a logical error here, isn’t there?
- The Taxpayers’ Alliance claims it “is committed to forcing politicians to listen to ordinary taxpayers”.
- The Taxpayers’ Alliance released a pamphlet today claiming that the 50p tax rate for those earning over £150,000 introduced in the last Budget will seriously damage the economy and is grossly unfair to the wealthy.
- Polls [...]

Filed under: Financial crisis, Tax | 1 Comment »

The top ten blogs
Iain Dale is asking for nominations for the top ten political blogs, and this is stimulating much discussion (and self-promotion!). Here is Clifford Singer’s top ten – and we are very pleased to see that he has put ToUChstone in it. Looks like a good slate to us!

Filed under: Blogging, Web links | 3 Comments »

In today’s Financial Times, Ralph Atkins reports that Peter Bofinger, economics professor and a top adviser to the German Government, has warned that Germany is pursuing a dangerous strategy in assuming a pick-up in world growth with restore the health of its export-driven economy.

Filed under: Economics, Europe, Financial crisis, Recession | Comments Off

I wasn’t very impressed with Vince Cable’s recent Mail on Sunday piece on public sector pensions. Yesterday’s article on the challenges of an ageing workforce is much more interesting – and anyone who can introduce the lump of labour fallacy to Mail on Sunday readers deserves high praise. His thesis that we need to change attitudes [...]

Filed under: Employers, Labour market, Pensions | Comments Off

N.B. Written on Saturday – but didn’t appear for some reason
There’s less talk of green shoots in today’s papers after yesterday’s poor GDP figures. In The Times the middle class recession is back. Times are certainly tough in Maidenhead. Their case study picture (in the paper – not online) is captioned:
“Mrs Williams has taken to [...]

Filed under: Media, Recession | Comments Off

The BBC’s flagship radio news programme Today has had a couple of interesting pieces on happiness in the last couple of days, including a report from Denmark, which regularly tops polls as the happiest place in Europe. They included a clip of David Cameron’s call for more consideration of general well-being than gross domestic product. Much of [...]

Filed under: Employers, Inequality, Skills, Social mobility | 3 Comments »

Why cuts could cause a new slump
As the public sector is already the biggest employer in most areas, the danger is that such cuts could tip local economies into another recession just as the private sector is recovering. Chris Smith reports on a new Centre for Cities report which examines the impact.

Filed under: Web links | Comments Off