Nigel Stanley
The calls for immediate public spending cuts are bad economics, motivated by a desire to shrink the state. When the recession is properly over and the time is right to reduce the deficit then the best way to do this is through the fruits of economic growth and through a progressive tax regime that asks those who did the best from from the bubble to make a fair contribution to putting right the damage done when it burst.
Adam Lent
Good to see the Financial Times agreeing with me that the CBI is very uncomfortable with all the talk of rapid and deep cuts.
A case of Thatcherite ideology butting up against economic realities. Maybe the Tories would share the discomfort if it was their business or job facing the axe.
Adam Lent
As regular visitors to this site know, the TUC has made a big splash over the last few months on the issue of Middle Income Britain. The PM’s speech today drew on many of the themes we have been pressing. Two sections of the speech particularly stood out:
Owen Tudor
The Prime Minister has just announced a commitment to legislate to require British Governments to spend 0.7% of Gross National Income (the UN target) on overseas development assistance from 2013 onwards. This would raise the pledge from a manifesto commitment in 2005 to a ring-fenced budget (ie a ‘no go area‘ for cuts), and it is a welcome pledge.
Nigel Stanley
Peter Mandelson’s speech (YouTube) is undoubtedly the talk of Labour conference here in Brighton. It was of course an extraordinary performance but that should not obscure its policy content.
Owen Tudor
Initial reactions: the International Trade Union Confederation welcomed the focus on jobs and growth at the Pittsburgh summit last week (union lobbying was quite successful on those sections of the summit communique) but there is still a long way to go. There’s a useful summary of civil society responses on Kel Currah’s ‘Sherpa Times’ website (sherpas are the civil servants who negotiate the G8 and G20 summit communiques – but reading the preamble to last week’s communique, you can hear Gordon Brown dictating it – I particularly liked “no more banking as usual”!) Further analysis will follow, but note also Kel Currah’s assessment of who had the best summit, among CSOs: us!
Owen Tudor
There were two European election results yesterday – Germany’s was by far the best reported. Disunity on the left gave the SPD just 23%, the Left party (Die Linke) 12% and the Greens 11% while Chancellor Merkel’s CDU/CSU got 34% and her new coalition partners, the FDP got 15%. The overall 49%:46% result makes it look closer than it was and clearly the SDP have some serious thinking to do about where next. It’s worth noting that unions were split too, with support for all three non-conservative parties, whereas a decade ago they would all have supported the SPD.
Nigel Stanley
I’m down in Brighton for Labour’s conference where we have learnt from today’s Observer that Alistair Darling:
will attempt to seize back the initiative on the economy – and deflect Tory claims that Labour is reckless with the public finances – by announcing in his conference speech plans for a new law that will force governments to keep the public deficit under control.
Owen Tudor
The TUC Congress carried a resolution calling for a campaign against the proposed EU-Colombia free trade agreement, because Colombia is the country where most trade unionists get killed, and the Colombian government does next to nothing to investigate or punish the murderers. The day before Congress debated the motion, Members of the European Parliament were already arguing against the deal. Labour MEP David Martin, who is an influential voice on the Parliament’s Trade Committee, asked the EU’s Trade Commissioner Baroness Cathy Ashton to:
“suspend their GSP+ agreement with Colombia, and secondly suspend our negotiations for a free trade agreement, until we get the assurances from the Colombian Government that trade unionists, human rights activists and others can go about their business safety in that country?”