Philip Pearson
In the first draft text for the crucial Copenhagen agreement on climate change this December, the UN has brought into play the trade union call for Just Transition to a low carbon future into its ‘shared vision’ for long-term cooperative action between developed and developing countries.
Tim Page
This morning’s Financial Times finds Martin Wolf in reflective mood (‘This crisis is a moment, but may not be a defining one’, p. 13). Wolf argues that “the (economic) crisis is global, with a particularly severe impact on countries that specialised in exports of manufactured goods or that relied on net imports of capital.” Wolf adds that policymakers have thrown the most aggressive fiscal and monetary stimuli and financial rescues ever seen at this crisis, and that this effort has brought some success.
Richard Exell
In today’s Recession Report we analyse the most recent labour market statistics and look at how the recession has been affecting young people.
This month we take a closer look at some of the main statistics. We explain, for instance, the difference between how the employment level and employment rate are calculated, and look at how they have changed in the recession so far. Although the employment level is down by about 300,000 and the employment rate by a little over one percentage point, a look back shows that they are still higher than the figures inherited by the Government in 1997.
Nicola Smith
Nigel has pointed out that part of the expenses outrage is “motivated by a progressive belief that MPs are doing too well out of growing inequality”. I thought it might be worth point out just how well. The latest Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) shows that gross median full-time pay (the level that half of full-time employees are above, and half are below) is £479. In the 90th percentile, gross weekly full-time pay is above £946. Based on a salary of £64,700, MPs are taking home around £1,244 a week gross. This therefore puts them well within the top decile – according to Stumbling and Mumbling MPs are within the top three per cent of earners in the country.
Nicola Smith
The impact of the recession on women is still being discussed. The debate that started in January goes on, and despite the media misreporting earlier this year it’s good to see that conversations remain focused on how the specific challenges that women will face during the recession can be overcome. No one is (or ever has been) arguing that more women than men are losing their jobs, or women’s needs are more important than those of other groups, only that the particular ways in which women are affected by the downturn should be recognised and addressed.
Owen Tudor
Following up March’s Put People First March for Jobs, Justice, Climate, this weekend has seen even more people on the streets, as the economic crisis worsens. About a third of a million people have taken part in trade union demonstrations around Europe, starting with 150,000 in Madrid on Thursday, followed by 50,000 in Brussels on Friday, and demonstrations today in Berlin, Birmingham and Prague with 140,000 other demonstrators.
Owen Tudor
The Financial Times reports a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers that suggests male middle managers spending their working lives in the civil service will take home more money over their life times than similar middle managers in the financial services sector. The conclusion that public sector workers’ wages and pensions should be cut because they are cossetted and too expensive for the economy to support, is utterly wrong.
Nigel Stanley
The short answer is that no-one can know how the deep public anger against MPs will play out. When the Telegraph led for two days on Labour MPs it looked very bad for the government. But now each party’s skeletons have come out of the expenses records filing cabinets the public mood seems much more to be a plague on all your houses.
