Philip Pearson

Quick off the mark, Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change, Ed Miliband, has just announced amendments to the Energy Bill to support a feed-in tariff for small scale power generation.

A win-win for climate change and the economy (and a big shift in the Government’s position). The TUC and the many supporters of a feed-in tariff believe it will kick start a new microgeneration industry – a green answer to the economic slow down. First, we’d urge the Government to bring in these powers urgently, so we can catch up with our EU competitors, like Germany and Denmark, which have tens of thousands of workers in the renewables industries. And second, could the major power utilities now drop their opposition?

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Paul Sellers

A recent story in the Sunday Mirror reported that a senior Tory said that the minimum wage could be “allowed to wither on the vine”.

Is the story true? Well, it certainly a tactic that has been pursued  by Republican presidents in the USA. The story has not been rebutted by the Conservative Party, and the policy statements on their website do indicate that they plan to create more jobs by removing “red tape”.

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Brendan Barber

Today is Blog Action Day, when thousands of bloggers around the world will be blogging against global poverty. It may seem odd to focus on poverty in developing countries as the storm of the financial crisis whips through the stock markets of the rich and powerful. But the two crises are linked.

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Nicola Smith

Few workers take cases of mistreatment to employment tribunals. However, for those who successfully manage to negotiate the system and take a successful claim, there is a one in ten chance that they will never receive the award that they are entitled to. The Government has an important chance to close this loophole, and make amendments to the Employment Bill to ensure that workers who win an award receive it.

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Nigel Stanley

I detect the start of ‘credit crunch - it can’t be all bad’ sentiments.

Some of it is entirely justifiable schadenfreude at those losing their telephone number sized bonuses, though I expect they will soon get round this. It’s a pity we cannot use the Freedom of Information Act to demand a transcript of the discussions in the middle of the night where Sir Fred Goodwin is reported to have demanded a big pay-off before agreeing to stand down from RBS. In passing let me award him a “They Just Don’t Get It” gong.

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Nigel Stanley

It’s now easier to add a comment to ToUChstone blog as, along with a bunch of technical improvements, we have lifted the requirement to register with us.

We hope that this will provoke more feedback and discussion. But it’s still our blog and we reserve the right to delete anything that is offensive or otherwise isn’t suitable.

I am sure that post authors will read comments and will want to respond when appropriate, but that is not guaranteed. Don’t forget we are not full-time bloggers, but fitting it into the odd spare minute.

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Nicola Smith

While there is still no clear Tory employment rights policy, ongoing media reports are confirming that the Conservatives are no friends of hard working people. Alan Duncan sets the general tone, warning of small businesses drowning in seas of red tape and unnecessary regulation.  However, this non-specific ranting provides no clarity about which specific regulations are preventing small businesses from thriving, and which rights the Conservatives are proposing that workers surrender.  Is it maternity leave, time off for ante-natal appointments or access to health and safety equipment that the Tories believe we should axe?

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Owen Tudor

Here’s one that had me choking on my cornflakes. The FT’s normally excellent Stefan Stern, writing today about the recent outrage about Lehman Bros CEO Dick Fuld’s vast earnings, says: “we didn’t hear many complaints when the economy was healthy,” which is a statement so infuriatingly wrong and complacent as to cause outrage all on its own.

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Adam Lent

It’s the new corporate catch-22 and you better get used to it because you’ll hear it a lot over the next few months. I’ve come across it twice in the last two days.

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Adam Lent

I thought this would happen just not so soon.  Those ‘compassionate conservatives’ are already using the threat of recession to argue for a reduction in workplace rights.  This is no backbench fundamentalist sounding off. It’s a major intervention by Mark Prisk who is, apparently, the Shadow Business Secretary and Chris Grayling, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary.  Prisk, in particular, has called for the recent deal improving rights for agency workers (and supported by the CBI!) to be overturned.  Grayling wants the priority to be deregulation over the next two years. The reason: to create jobs.  I can think of three reasons immediately why this is daft (not to mention cruel).

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