Adam Lent
The Taxpayers’ Alliance may finally have over-reached themselves. They have just launched a cinema advert claiming the EU costs each UK citizen £2,000 per year. As Left Foot Forward show, the actual figure is £15 per year according to the EU Budget. That’s not a typo: the TPA are genuinely claiming that each UK taxpayer pays £1,985 more than the figure stated by the EU.
Tim Page
Hold the front page! Actually, the Financial Times did hold a bit of the front page. This is for the shock news that the CBI, Britain’s bosses organisation, has, in the FT’s words, “backed Conservative plans to cut the budget deficit swiftly and sharply”.
Before continuing, I should confess that I have a few chums in the CBI. For five years now, I have represented the TUC in meetings with government on manufacturing industry, among other things, and my CBI counterpart and I usually agree much more than we disagree.
But this is serious territory.
Minister of State for Business, Innovation and Skills Pat McFadden gives a keynote speech to Beyond Crisis, the TUC/Guardian conference on a progressive response to the financial crisis. 16 November 2009.
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber gives a keynote speech to Beyond Crisis, the TUC/Guardian conference on a progressive response to the financial crisis. 16 November 2009.
John Wood
It probably won’t come as a great surprise to hear the TUC is a pretty good employer – it sort of has to be. One of the employment benefits we get here is the offer of Childcare Vouchers – the scheme that the Government may (or may not) be about to curtail in favour of providing more free places for two year olds from poorer families.
Regardless of the merits of either policy (TUC view here if you’re interested), I’ve been interested in one related development this week. I got an email from Accor, the voucher scheme service provider, but rather than being a usual statement of my account, it’s a bit of a call to action.
Philip Pearson
With chances of a binding Copenhagen agreement receding fast, the international trade union movement has called on governments to go to Copenhagen ready to make decisions that will put the world on an unequivocal path to a low-carbon future.
ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder said today:
“The science shows clearly that the longer we wait, the higher the human, environmental and economic costs will be. We need governments to make ambitious commitments which will set in stone the core elements of a treaty that must be completed as a matter of urgency. This means legally-binding targets on emissions and longer-term financing to assist developing countries to adapt, as well as ’just transition’ strategies to deal with the social and employment dimensions.”
Presentations from a panel discussion at the TUC/Guardian Beyond Crisis conference. Monday 16 November 2009. Speakers are Lord Richard Layard (LSE), Andrew Simms (NEF), Glenis Wilmott MP. Chaired by Larry Elliot.
Presentations from a workshop session at Beyond Crisis, the TUC/Guardian conference on a progressive response to the financial crisis. 16 November 2009. Ann Pettifor and Richard Murphy, with Adam Lent chairing.