Philip Pearson

We’d welcome many a speech drawing attention to the challenge of climate change and the need for massive public investment to meet it. Ideas signalled by George Osborne today might be music to the ears of spending departments.

It’s easy to pick on the detail, get bogged down in practicalities. The Green Investment Bank has drawn many positive comments. Osborne said: “Instead of the current system of multiple sources of Government funding for green investment projects, we will look to roll up these funds into a single bank that can leverage private sector investment and fund new green start-ups.” But we’re bound to ask how much new public funding is involved, how would it be capitalised, where from, and instead of what?

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Adam Lent

David Cameron argued in his CBI speech yesterday that interest rates are already facing pressure to rise as Government borrowing crowds out the private sector.  Interesting then to note that, according to Moneyfacts, the average interest charged on a two-year fixed-rate mortagage has fallen below 5% for the first time since June.  (Thanks to Duncan for drawing my attention to this report).

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Nigel Stanley

Homelessness charity St Mungos have commissioned a poll from MORI looking at public attitudes to long term unemployment. Here are some highlights:

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Owen Tudor

The chief of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, told the CBI conference on Monday that the recession isn’t over until people are back at work, that reducing the public deficit too soon would be worse than cutting it too late, and that progressive taxation was a good way to close the deficit. This runs completely counter to CBI and Conservative policies on government expenditure (and is pretty much what the TUC has been arguing for), so I don’t know how well he went down!

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Owen Tudor

The Prime Minister’s speech to the CBI on Monday was right to emphasise the importance of Europe to the British economy. The EU has been criticised (most trenchantly – or at least frequently – by the Financial Times’ commentator Wolfgang Munchau) for not having stepped up to the plate during the global economic crisis. This is perhaps unfair – there is serious work going on to re-regulate the financial sector in the aftermath of the crisis, and the EU did struggle to put money on the table by way of fiscal stimulus. But at present, the EU’s economic strategy (determined in 2000 in Lisbon – so it’s called “the Lisbon strategy” – and revised in 2005) has left it unable to intervene sufficiently to create jobs. That strategy is due to be replaced in 2010 – the focus of the PM’s speech – and we need to make sure that the next strategy is fit for purpose: it must, for example, abandon supply-side neo-liberal deregulation and put in place a 21st century, European Keynesianism.

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• The labour market across the UK in the current recession
  New analysis from the ONS on how the recession has affected labour markets across the UK’s regions and nations (pdf)
• Cameron & Crowding Out
  Duncan’s Economic Blog on Cameron’s CBI speech. David Cameron claimed today that higher public borrowing was damaging the economy. Duncan responds to one of his key arguments in his usual well-informed fashion.
• Bank tax to help poor wins public support across the political spectrum
  A YouGov poll for Oxfam has found 53% of the British public would support a transaction tax to raise money to help poor people affected by the economic crisis in the UK and abroad and to cope with climate change, whilst only 28% would oppose the idea.
• The BCC’s misguided call for a freeze on labour law
  Richard Arthur of Thompsons Solicitors writes on Left Foot Forward: “On Friday, the FT reported that the British Chamber of Commerce were seeking for a three year moratorium on labour legislation. This is misguided. It fails to take account of the UK’s obligations under EU law as well as the fact that many of the measures likely to be implemented are, or already have been, subject to staged or delayed implementation.”

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Adam Lent

It is striking that Cameron has felt under enough pressure on his austerity line to devote a large section of his CBI speech today to defending himself against the charge that his plans would damage the economy.  Something the TUC have been saying ad nauseam. He has also now rebranded his budget plans as being about growth rather than cuts.

But Cameron didn’t answer one of the hardest questions: when exactly will he start reducing spending? 

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Adam Lent

David Cameron has announced today that if his Party wins the election, they will hold an emergency Budget within fifty days. On describing the likely content of that Budget, he said it would be:

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Owen Tudor

The appointment on Thursday of Herman van Rumpoy as EU President and Cathy Ashton as Foreign Affairs Representative has been met with some staggering snootiness – mostly from people who admit to knowing neither of them. Apparently they aren’t famous enough to be appointed to such important positions (although all the critics are careful to guard their backs by referring to their undoubted personal qualities and skills). This is the ultimate dumbing down of politics, and a rather childish demand for mother/father figures as our political leaders. Aren’t politicians supposed to become famous (or, be fair, infamous) because of what they do in their highest profile positions? Doesn’t everyone say that we should appoint the best people for the jobs? And would the people who are doing the criticising happily submit their own jobs to the same process of “appointment by celebrity”?

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Owen Tudor

Last week, the Prime Minister, and before him, the Home Secretary, made major speeches on immigration. They both claimed to understand ‘the problem’ and be ready to address it. They gave the impression that this is a really new debate, and that they were ready, at last, to take action. Today the Director of the Adam Smith Institute (ASI) hit back in the Financial Times (on a page you have to pay to view, ironically enough) so I thought a TUC comment might provide some balance. However, mostly, we agree with the ASI: immigration policy is too tough already and is set to get worse, whichever party policy you read.

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