Philip Pearson

Yesterday, MPs expressed support for the key messages in the TUC’s report, a Roadmap for Coal, which argues that the future of the UK’s coal and power industry and its 10,000  direct employees hangs in the balance. The co-chairs of the APPG for clean coal, Brian Binley MP and Ian Lavery MP, undertook to raise plant closures and the need to safeguard investment in clean coal technology with Ministers. A report in The Times yesterday reported the imminent  closure of five older generation power station, which, as Prospect commented, could push up energy prices further.

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• Private sector earnings growth slips back to 3% as stagflation grips economy « IDS eye – blog from Incomes Data Services
  Alastair Hatchett at IDS highlights that much private sector earnings growth is being driven by high earners in the finance sector, and that the decline in activity across the economy is leading to a reduction in overtime, shift and bonus payments.
• Is Tax Avoidance a Reputational Risk?
  Mark Serwotka writes for FairPensions blog that recent profile campaigns, coupled with the focus on public spending cuts, mean that taxation can no longer be considered an issue “too complex or obscure for the media and the public to understand”.

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Matt Dykes

The gap between the reality and rhetoric  around the Government’s programme of public service reform continues to widen.

The Open Public Services white paper was big on rhetoric. But does it bear up to scrutiny?

Let’s take one example, public service mutuals. 

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Duncan Weldon

The Item Club has downgraded it’s growth forecasts for the UK once again – from a forecast of 1.4% for 2011 (made only three months ago) down to just 0.9%, implying growth of only 0.4% in the third and fourth quarters.

It is also downgrading its 2012 forecast from a reasonable 2.2% to a more pedestrian 1.5%.

Downgrades to UK growth forecasts are sadly no longer big news, they seem to happen with alarming frequency but this one may be more significant. Crucially the Item Club uses the same economic model as the Treasury, which just happens to be the same model used by the OBR.

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Alison Garnham

The vast majority of children live in poverty not because their parents are workshy, are drug or alcohol dependent, or can’t manage their children properly, as government rhetoric increasingly seems to suggest. They are poor because their parents don’t have an adequate income to make ends meet.

Work and worklessness:

It is wrong to say that poverty is caused by parents unwilling to work. The majority of children in poverty – 58% – have a working parent.  These families are in working poverty because very often there is no alternative to low paid jobs, with few opportunities for progression. The lack of good, affordable childcare means that many families cannot afford to work more hours.

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Owen Tudor

Everyone – regardless of whether they’re involved – has their own explanation of the meaning of this weekend’s 950 worldwide “occupy” protests which have their roots variously in Egypt’s Tahrir Square, Greece’s Syntagma Square, Rothschild Boulevard in Israel and Wall Street in the USA. First prize in totally missing the point with breath-taking chutzpah must go to Foreign Secretary William Hague who told the BBC that he could understand popular concern about ”too many debts built up by states” – you’ll have noticed how many people at the Occupy events mentioned the need to pay down the deficit and engage in austerity policies (not)!

The numbers involved have not of course been huge (although 950 separate events on a single weekend does suggest some zeitgeist-style expression of shared concerns) and the almost studied reluctance to adopt a manifesto leaves a vacuum that many seek to fill, usually claiming that the demonstrators share the commentator’s concerns. But here are some first thoughts.

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Marie-Louise Knuppert

We believe that the new government will get Denmark back on track. And we are pleased that, once again, the social partners will be given the opportunity to take on our share of the responsibility for making sure that Denmark gets back on the right track. Trade unions are very happy that the Danish people have entrusted the centre-left party with the task of leading Denmark out of the crisis, and we have great confidence that they will succeed.

The new government has presented an ambitious program to kick start the economy and to create conditions for sustained growth and employment, upgrading education and research. After 10 years of liberal-conservative rule, the Social Democrats are leading a new centre-left government coalition together with the Social-Liberal Party and the Socialist People’s Party.

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Owen Tudor

Tonight’s G20 Finance Ministers meeting seems to have descended into a row over the EU’s proposed Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) even though it’s not on the agenda. But it will be on the agenda for the G20 summit in Cannes next month, and there is now an increasing clamour for the tax, in countries whose Governments are not yet supporters: like Canada, India, Japan, South Africa and the USA. And now, the online protest community Avaaz, now 10 million supporters strong worldwide, is providing people in Britain with the opportunity to tell the UK Government to back an FTT.

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Dann Kenningham

On Monday 17 October – the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty – the TUC’s Unemployed Workers’ Centres will host the annual TUC Poverty Conference. A number of different campaigns and charities have helped organise this year’s conference, which is looking at the myths and stereotypes around poverty. In this post, Dan Kenningham from ATD Fourth World looks at child poverty – what it is really like, not the stereotypes.

Hunger, stigma and education. These were the words that sprang forth when ATD Fourth World recently held a discussion on the theme of child poverty.  The words were all the more forceful for coming from people with personal experience of poverty.

Being in poverty does not make one a bad parent. It is not that simple.

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Richard Exell

The government plans to suspend benefit for people who appeal against a decision to disallow Employment and Support Allowance (the main income replacement benefit for disabled people of working age). The New Statesman’s Samira Shackle reports that the government has noticed that 37% of those found fit for work appeal, and of those who appeal, 39% win a judgement in their favour.

The old Incapacity Benefit is being replaced by ESA, and every existing claimant is having to go through the Work Capability Assessment, the tougher test that was originally brought in by the last government. Literally hundreds of thousands of people are going to win appeals against not being awarded the new benefit. Now, you or I might conclude from this that (1) there’s something wrong with the new test and (2) given that such a high proportion of the people who failed the test are actually entitled to the benefit, it’s probably best to err on the side of generosity in deciding how to treat them while they appeal.

The government, it seems, sees things differently.

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