Philip Pearson
To the launch of the new All-Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change (APPGCC), where Ed Miliband announced the details of his new coal consultation. Listening to the carefully worked out strategy, which even Greenpeace described as “promising” today, it all seems a long way from the policy doldrums of January ’09 when a true sense of inertia had set in, disgruntling the Coal Forum, NGOs and the TUC.
Tim Page
In these troubled times, the last thing we really need is a dose of Thatcherism, yet that is what we are offered in today’s FT. John Reed, in ’Back on the road’, an article about the state of the motor industry, uses a full page when a paragraph would have sufficed. His argument boils down to this:
Nigel Stanley
Ensuring the whole country has access to broadband is extremely sensible. I would not go quite as far as Gordon Brown as saying it is as important as fresh water, but it is essential to full participation in modern life. And as there is clear market failure – otherwise everyone would already have it – the state should intervene.
Nigel Stanley
update: the TUC is now the lead comment on the BBC piece mentioned below. I – of course – withdraw any hint of criticism of the wonderful BEEB who should be allowed to keep all the license fee. But there is still a serious point to be made about city experts.
I’ll leave my expert colleagues to trawl over the unemployment figures in detail, but it’s hard to see the highest youth unemployment figures for 15 years as good news.
Yet the media is now on relentless green shoot hunt. It’s disappointing to see even the BBC treating the jobless figures in this way, with no quotes from anyone who works with or represents the unemployed – and instead quotes from two city economists and the Chambers of Commerce (though there’s nothing much wrong with their take).
Of course it’s right to look at detailed economic statistics, but as Brendan argued earlier this week there are strong vested interests talking up a recovery that is extremely remote for all the people who make up today’s jobless figures. Some people are very keen to get back to the days when they could easily argue that unemployment was the fault of the unemployed, easily fixed with a short sharp dose of workfare.
Calvin Allen
The publication of the Digital Britain White Paper provides one of the first new government policy statements towards Building Britain’s Future. This is a welcome return to policy setting as the role of government and, by the extent of news coverage, it looks as though most of the media is also glad to have something new to get its teeth into.
Philip Pearson
Last update from the UN climate change talks in Bonn, where I’ve been working as part of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) lobbying team.
We’ve had a sympathetic hearing with the head of the UK Government’s negotiating team. The ITUC pitched its case on the need to find a consensus in Copenhagen that sends a message to the world: that success depends on building a low carbon, climate resilient society incorporating a sense of social justice. We explained that our Just Transition text had made it into the shared vision negotiations thanks to an initiative from one far-sighted Government. Now we were looking to secure further support from many governments, and to identify potential barriers in the coming weeks.
Nigel Stanley
The Guardian reports that Ken Clarke has softened Tory opposition to the Lisbon treaty. One suspects that many Conservatives are secretly not wanting an early election so that Lisbon can be ratified after an Irish referendum.
But much more interesting is his strong reiteration of Conservative plans to tear up the Social Chapter, and repatriate powers to regulate the labour market. If it is said by Clarke – the leading Tory Europhile – then it cannot be dismissed as a pre-election gesture to the Tory/UKIP fringe. It also looks like they have thought about the detail of how this might be done.
Brendan Barber
Some commentators and people in the finance industry in the UK are now saying the recession is over. It is certainly true that aggressive policies to head off the collapse of the financial system did their job. It could have been so much worse.
But while the world economy – at least this month – is not in free-fall, that is not the same as recovery.