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Left Foot Forward considers Conservative policies on tax credits
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David Pitt-Watson
David Pitt-Watson will be speaking at Beyond Crisis, a TUC / Guardian one-day conference on progressive responses to the financial crisis on 16 Nov in Central London. Register for free tickets at www.tuc.org.uk/beyondcrisisWe are all understandably angry about banker’s bonuses and the seeming irresponsibility of the capital markets. They have cost us a fortune; in wealth, in jobs, in public spending. But railing against the capital markets won’t get us very far unless we have an alternative.
So here is the big question: “What should our capital markets look like? What functions should they carry out, and how would you judge if they are doing a good job?” Answer that, and we might get a better handle on how policy and action can create the world we want to see.
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Nicola Smith
Several weeks ago we reported on a strange labour market analysis recently published by the Conservatives. Yesterday’s media suggests that they are at it again. First, they say that we have the highest levels of youth unemployment in Europe. This is accurate, but that is because we are a big country (our actual population of 15-24 year olds, according to the latest Eurostat data, is the third largest in the entire EU27). It is no great surprise to learn that the UK has more unemployed young people than Luxembourg. And on the same meaningless measure youth unemployment in the US is worse than in the entire euro area.
But if you look at a more meaningful measure – the youth unemployment rate (which shows the actual chances of someone being out of work) the UK is slightly below both the EU16 and EU27 average. Given the extent of the falls we have seen in GDP, this appears to be fairly good going.
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Brendan Barber
We are starting to hear reports of ‘green shoots’ in the economy: the markets are up; banks are back to record profits; and bonuses are back in the financial sector. Some headlines have even triumphantly proclaimed that the recession is nearly over. But the reality is that the recession is far from over. It is not over for the hundreds of thousands of people who have already lost their jobs, those fearful of being made unemployed, or the millions of young people who can’t find work.
Premature calls to reduce the public sector deficit are threatening to derail efforts to stimulate the economy and address unemployment. The political debate has somehow shifted from how we deal with the economic crisis to how to reduce the debt by cutting public spending and services. We’re told it is the public sector that will have to face the consequence of this recession that originated in bank boardrooms. Those who depend on public services and public service workers didn’t cause this crisis, but they are being made to bear the brunt of the problem.
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Economics
#7: Speaking up for Public Services – The vital role of the public sector in and beyond the recession
Pamphlet #7: Speaking up for Public Services
Britain’s public services are a vital bedrock in sustaining local economies and communities both in good times and now, during the worst economic recession in living memory. They ensure essential investment in infrastructure and support for business and can mitigate the worst social and economic consequences of the downturn.
But as public services come under increasing pressure to cut costs and jobs, Speaking up for Public Services challenges the view that spending cuts are the only option. For Britain to emerge successfully from the current recession in a strong position for the future, we need to strengthen and sustain our core public services.
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Adam has a guest post on Liberal Conspiracy. What do you do when you suddenly find your road map is 40 years out of date?
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Ian Brinkley
Ian Brinkley will be speaking at Beyond Crisis, a TUC / Guardian one-day conference on progressive responses to the financial crisis on 16 Nov in Central London. Register for free tickets at www.tuc.org.uk/beyondcrisisThe most recent growth figures (GDP) are a reminder that economic forecasting is a mug’s game. They show the UK economy was still contracting in the third quarter of 2009. Taking other indicators into account, we are still likely to be at a turning point and the numbers may well be revised upwards later this year.
But it is a salutary reminder of how easily hopes of an early recovery can be dashed. We have even less idea of the shape of the recovery – whether it will be a V, W or some other letter. The longer-term impact of the credit crunch on investment and consumer spending and the effectiveness of measures to free up the supply of credit – including “quantitative easing” – are still unknown. The only thing we can be fairly sure of is that the recovery in output to pre-recession levels will take no more than 4 years (a similar period to the Great Depression in the 1930s).
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Philip Pearson
Ed Miliband’s clutch of four national Energy Policy Statements, announced today, mark another key stage in our low carbon energy strategy. It’ll help deliver up to 500,000 green energy jobs by 2020 set out in the Government’s Renewable Energy Strategy last July. This includes opportunities in the UK and from growing markets across Europe and globally.
Those calling for a smaller State and Budget cutbacks might heed this comment from the independent Committee on Climate Change in October 2009:
There is an approach to power generation that says emissions from the sector are capped and that we can entirely rely on the market to determine the appropriate path to decarbonisation. This is not, however, an approach that the Committee accepts. Whilst inclusion of the power sector in the EU ETS will deliver the emissions cuts required in the sector to 2020, it will not automatically bring forward the low-carbon investment to deliver required emissions cuts in the 2020s and beyond.
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Good news from the Other TaxPayers' Alliance.
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Nigel Stanley
We have not got stuck into the debate about MPs’ expenses here as everybody else has done it to death. Nor do I think – given voter anger – MPs have any option other than to accept the Kelly recommendations in full, even if I agree that some of them are badly thought through. (Charles Clarke has an intelligent critique).
They are collectively guilty of accepting a system that attempted to disguise their pay, by diverting it into an allowance system, so they now have to take the collective punishment. There do seem to me to be two points – however – worth making: