Owen Tudor

Eric Hobsbawm has written in the Guardian that, following communism’s failure in the last century, capitalism has now followed suit. So what’s still available, ideologically speaking? He states that social democracy as practised by the Blair and Brown administrations has run out of steam as well – this is, after all, the author of “The forward march of labour halted”, so this is familiar territory. But does it have much to offer us in the way of prescriptions? I think not.

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Owen Tudor

I am in Australia visiting my sister and her family, and the effect of climate change is evident all around. In Bendigo, Victoria, where she lives, there has been a full-on drought for over a decade. When I first visited over 20 years ago, Victoria was as green as South East England. Now, it is mostly yellow, and some bits of the countryside are beginning to fade to greyness. And yet Australian employers are still holding out against firm action on climate change.

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Nicola Smith

Oxfam have provided a timely intervention on UK poverty and the economic downturn, highlighting how the recession is impacting both on those who were in poverty before it started and those who have recently lost their jobs. The report shows that even before the recession progress on poverty reduction had been slowing, and that recent high cost of living rises have been having a disproportionate impact on the poorest, who spend more of their budgets on essential items.

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• Give the jobless the dole increase they're worth Alistair Darling
  Kevin Maguire on how perceptions of Job Seekers' Allowance are changing, now that many more higher salaried employees are losing their jobs.
  (tags: jsa budget)
• Meet Fred : Oxfam GB
  Oxfam think the UK is becoming a nation of FREDs – Forgotten by those in power – Ripped-off by taxes and the benefits system – Excluded from opportunities – Debt-ridden because they can’t afford to get by. They've a new report with a six point rescue plan that they're lobbying on.
  (tags: debt poverty inequality)

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• TUC Budget Submission
  We're calling for a £25 billion public investment programme in the Chancellor's upcoming budget. This could create and safeguard a million jobs, doubling the UK's fiscal stimulus package to 3.25%, and bringing it into line with the average stimulus for advanced economies. The cost of inaction would be mass unemployment and an even greater strain on public finances for decades to come.
  (tags: tuc budget)

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Richard Exell

I see that the Conservatives have decided that the cut in VAT is a ‘con’ because rich people gain more from it than poor people. Well, in a sense, that is obvious: rich people have more money to spend than poor people, so they pay more in VAT.

But if you care about whether a tax is pro-poor or not, the important question is: what proportion of people’s income does it take?

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Philip Pearson

With economies as unmanageable as Marley the rom-com dog, the TUC welcomed the G20′s tightening leash on the global financial system – and new funds for the poorest countries. The G20 communiqué was right to say that, “We face the greatest challenge to the world economy in modern times”. But they put off climate change to the Copenhagen conference.

So, with the TUC’s Budget for jobs and green growth we now have the chance to address climate change and recovery. Our green Budget will save jobs and get Britain marching down what the CBI is calling a Revolutionary Road (ie the path to a low carbon economy).

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• An agenda for social democracy.
  A news report of interesting Australian paper – the full paper (pdf) is here.
• Sketchuponomics:
  A Trillion dollars you say – So just how big is that?

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Owen Tudor

Philip Stephens, writing in the Financial Times, shares the commonly held view that the London Summit went further than most people expected, but not far enough. Viewed from a year ago, what is in the London communique is astounding – not in terms of the specific measures proposed (although they are evidence enough that a lot has changed – regulating hedge funds, cracking down on tax havens etc), but in the assessment of the world and what can and needs to be done.

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Owen Tudor

The leaders of the Global trade union movement were in London last week to lobby the people attending the London Summit, centred around the G20 nations. 55 trade unionists from 18 countries turned up, and met, in varying combinations, the heads of government from Britain (a visit to No 10), Brazil, South Africa and Australia, as well as the Director of the IMF and the Director General of the World Trade Organisation. Many of the people involved had seen their own countries’ leaders at home before coming, but it was still a busy couple of days.

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