Owen Tudor

Robert Mugabe’s cronies in Zimbabwe – clinging on to power and abusing as much of it as they still can, are furious that the European Union has maintained its sanctions on the elite of the country. They claim that the EU has sanctions against Zimbabwe in place, but in fact they are targeted on the people who used to run Zimbabwe as a brutal dictatorship. Trade unionists in Zimbabwe have welcomed the decision this week to keep up the pressure on Mugabe’s clique, not least because those still in positions of authority continue – a year into the power sharing agreement – to abuse that power.

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Owen Tudor

Today the OECD published its annual statement of how much each country’s government gives in overseas aid, and the big news is that the pledges made at the Gleneagles G8 summit in 2005 are not being met – to the tune of at least $22 billion a year. The Robin Hood Tax could bridge the gap and then some, so there is still time to produce enough overseas aid to meet the Millennium Development Goals that are due to be achieved by 2015.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is right to note that progress has been made (Britain for one is keeping its Gleneagles pledge), and that campaigners have something to be proud of. But we must go further and, as he also notes, we need a Financial Transactions Tax to plug the shortfall (a global tax could deliver $100 billion a year for international development which would more than meet the shortfall on the $50 billion a year promised at Gleneagles  - but then, that wasn’t enough anyway.)

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• Underemployment in the UK labour market
  ONS’s recent analysis of underemployment and the impact of the recession
• Daily Mail: Alex Brummer: Cynical and shameless: Quite simply, Britain’s bankers …
  We weren’t very happy with Alex Brummer’s recent New Statesman piece on pensions, but this is splendid stuff from today’s Daily Mail
• Britain’s Deficit – Paul Krugman Blog – NYTimes.com
  Paul Krugman is a bit of a hero at Touchstone towers- and here he is writing sense about Britain (hat tip: Luis Enrique).

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Nicola Smith

Some media coverage of today’s statistics suggests that unemployment is now rising sharply again. While future redundancies remain likely, and the ILO measure (which has fallen for 4 out of the 5 previous months) may well increase into 2010, the reality is that despite seeing record GDP falls, the labour market impacts of the recession have been nowhere near as bad as previous downturns.

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John Wood

Richard Branson was in yesterday’s Evening Standard, voicing his support for immediate cuts in public spending to address the deficit:

“We are going to have to cut our spending and I agree with the 20 leading economists who said we need to start this year. The next government, whatever party that is, must set out a plan to reduce the bulk of the deficit over a Parliament by cutting wasteful spending and must not put off those tough decisions to next year. These factors threaten to undermine the confidence of international and UK business, UK consumers and the global financial markets. That could cost jobs and reduce investment in Britain.”

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• 350 economists call for a financial transaction tax
  An open letter to the G20 in favour of the Robin Hood Tax, signed by 350 economists from across 35 countries.
• Tax Research UK: What a load of sabre rattling
  Mark Lee, a former chair of the Tax Faculty at the Institute of Chartered Accountants, pooh-poohs the idea that big companies are about to move off-shore
• Purnell sets out his grand vision | Left Foot Forward
  In a speech at the LSE James Purnell has suggested that 1% of the money spent by the Government to bail out the banks should be set aside for regulated lending to low income working families. Purnell has suggested that this money could be set aside by the Government as an endowment, which could be run by local civic organisations including trade unions.

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John Wood

The TUC has joined Christian Aid, Tax Justice Network, Tax Research UK and the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development in a response to the IMF’s request for civil society suggestions on how the financial sector could pay for the costs of government support given to the banks.

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Nigel Stanley

Simon Culhane is the chief executive of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment. Its website describes it thus:

(CISI) is the largest and most widely respected professional body for those who work in the securities and investment industry in the UK and in a growing number of major financial centres round the world.

I think we can conclude therefore that quite a lot of his members get big bonuses.

In the Times today he has possibly the silliest piece I have read on the recession. He argues that:

Banks are the scapegoat for politicians’ mismanagment”

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Nicola Smith

Last weekend, the Conservatives published a new document on inequality. ‘Labour’s Two Nations‘ lists a wide range of the UK’s social and economic injustices. Among other recent publications, it makes reference to the Marmot Review, highlighting its recent conclusion that:

There are serious inequalities of access to labour market inequalities… many are trapped in a cycle of low-paid poor quality work and unemployment.

The final report of the National Equality Panel, which concluded that levels of inequality in the UK are currently comparable with the period shortly after the Second World War, is also referenced. The implication is that a Conservative Party would do something to reverse these trends, and the report tells us that:

We need a new, progressive government that understands that we can only defeat poverty by tackling its root causes: poor educational attainment, inter-generational worklessness, and family breakdown. Only when we have done so will we able to defeat the scourge of poverty and inequality, and call ourselves one nation again.

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Nicola Smith

This week the Marmot Review, the Department of Health’s Strategic Review of Health Inequalities, was published. Its remit was to “focus on the social determinants of health and in particular, the way they influence health inequalities”. A review that starts with quote from Pablo Neruda seems unlikely to be limited in its scope, and the Marmot Review does not disappoint, taking a forensic and brutally honest look at the reality of the social causes of ill health.

The review identifies six policy recommendations, which reflect a life course perspective, recognising that disadvatage starts before birth and accumulates throughout life. All are important, in particular Policy Objective C, which calls for the creation of “fair employment and good work for all” in recognition of the reality that:

Work is good – and unemployment bad – for physical and mental health, but the quality of work matters. Getting people off benefits and into low paid, insecure and health-damaging work is not a desirable option

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