Richard Exell
Here’s an experiment. Have a look at the chart below. I deliberately haven’t labeled it; for the moment let’s just take it that it shows what happened to a couple of aspects of a social problem over the last 13 years:
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Richard Exell
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Richard Exell
Nick Clegg’s article in today’s Guardian is an important moment in the coalition government’s abandonment of the goal of reducing inequality. The article addresses other important issues – party politics, the scope for progressive governments in an age of austerity – but I want to concentrate on what he says about inequality.
Mr Clegg draws a distinction between old and new progressives. Old progressives aim to lift households out of poverty, new progressives do not see the attraction of this: “poverty plus a pound does not represent fairness.” The critiques of the distributional impact of the coalition’s policies have obviously had an impact: it looks as though the defence is going to be that poverty minus a pound doesn’t represent unfairness.
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Richard Exell
A Labour Party survey has revealed that 42 of the country’s 43 police forces have ceased recruitment of new officers; only Surrey is still taking on new constables. Given the fact that about six thousand officers retire each year, this inevitably will lead to falling police numbers.
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Lord Sassoon appears to admit in a House of Lords debate that a family could lose its Child Benefit if the grandmother is a higher rate taxpayer.
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Alex Barker reports on SMF’s analysis of Universal Credit: overall, a typical working family will see a steady rise in their effective marginal tax rate of 6p in the pound.
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Alex Barker argues that Chris Grayling could argue correctly that the Flexible New Deal is underperforming badly in terms of job starts. But, strange to speak, he doesn’t acknowledge the important wasy in which the Work Programme will resemble it.
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Read the Chancellor’s 2006 Times article on the Irish economic miracle, where we learn that “a generation ago it would have seemed ridiculous to go to Ireland for economics lessons. Not any more”.
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Richard Exell
Ladies and gentlemen, from the authority that described massive meals-on-wheels cuts as “a far more flexible and attractive meals service” we have another entry for the local government effrontery awards. Norfolk County Council is asking parish councils to take over road gritting as part of “a scheme to make services more responsive to local needs.”
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Richard Exell
Iain Duncan Smith was back in Wales last week and was asked whether he stands by his “on your bus” comments. It seems that he does:
People who live on low incomes pay their taxes and get up early in the morning, travel half an hour or an hour to work to be able to get … work. They have a limited expectation – they want to see people out of work make the same effort.
The problem, however, is not whether unemployed people are making sufficient effort – when there aren’t enough jobs, the main effect of focusing on this would simply be to create a more energetic dole queue.
And there aren’t enough jobs.
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Tim Page
News is usually made by things that happen, not by things that don’t happen. So don’t expect blanket coverage of today’s FT story that the Coalition’s proposed Growth White Paper, the positive balance to the pain and possible destruction of the government’s spending cuts, will not now appear is expected.
Yet this news is as important as it is damaging. The FT reports that a discussion paper will be published, hopefully in the next two weeks, but the detailed blueprint to entrench economic growth that business and unions have long awaited is not to happen. And if the news is bad, the reason for it almost beggars belief: there will not be a Growth White Paper because “the government [does] not have enough serious content” to warrant one.
Let us recap a little.
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Anjum Klair
Community Care reports on the National Housing Federation’s warning that about 400,000 vulnerable people could lose vital support under projected cuts by councils to their Supporting People programmes.
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Richard Exell
In the Observer sports section Portsmouth and former England goalie David James speaks out against school sports cuts. The paper also reports divisions in the Cabinet, with Nick Clegg and Andrew Lansley both critical of the move.
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The Daily Telegraph reports that a debate on the Big Society at the Church of England General Synod on Tuesday will be led by the Rt Rev Tim Stevens, the Bishop of Leicester. He will argue that benefit cuts threaten the positive elements of the Big Society and that the Housing Benefit changes could lead to the creation of ‘Townships’ – like those of South Africe under Apartheid.
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Chris Smith, the Chairman of the Environment Agency, reveals in the Observer that flood defence spending faces an immediate cut of 27% at a time when climate change will mean that this work is more necessary than ever.
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The Observer reports disquiet in the Cabinet about the government’s plans to axe Schools Sports Partnerships to save £162m. Nick Clegg and Andrew Lansley are both said to be concerned. (For background see our report last month)
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Community Care reports that social care staff account for 5% of all workers but 19% of workers who have been the victims of assault. Other sectors with a high risk of of assault were health (30% of all work-related injuries caused by assault) and public administration (20%).
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