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A useful primer from NEF on ten arguments to use against inequality.
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Duncan Weldon
Yesterday, amid grim news on unemployment and big cuts to the Bank of England’s growth forecasts, the Treasury published the latest round up of independent economic forecasts for the UK economy.
The big news in these forecasts was the very large upward revisions to public sector borrowing forecasts – revisions which suggest that the Government’s plan to deal with the deficit by 2015 look set to fall seriously short.
But almost as interesting, and missed in the blizzard of bad economic news yesterday, were the new forecasts for 2011 and specifically the composition of this growth.
UK domestic demand (the sum total of domestic government spending, household consumption and investment by firms) is now expected to subtract 0.6% from growth in 2011 (with is being offset by a positive contribution from net trade (exports minus imports).
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Tim Page
This morning, at the Social Market Foundation, Ed Milband made what the Guardian is calling his most important speech since the Labour Conference. You can read more about it here, but highlights included greater voting rights for long term shareholders in takeovers, a place for workers on company remuneration committees and a better system for encouraging vocational skills. Taking on his critics, who accused him of being anti-business when Labour met in Liverpool, he said a new responsible capitalism was “bang on pro-business”.
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Richard Exell
I have a post up at Left Foot Forward, looking at yesterday’s labour market figures from the Office for National Statistics. One of my key points is that the terrible results for youth unemployment (now over one million, for the first time ever) contrast with the steadily declining numbers on government employment and training programmes. The last government responded to rising youth unemployment with extra programmes to address the problem – the coalition abolished them less than a month after the election.
The other is that the figures falling employment and rising unemployment are the highest since the summer of 2009, just before we came out of recession. There are terrible figures for the ratio of unemployed people to vacancies and for pay increases as well. Although GDP figures have economists debating if we will have a double dip recession, the employment data look as if its already here.
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Paul Nowak
Two articles in today’s newspapers show notions of ‘localism’ are being undermined by central government spending cuts.
The FT leads on an Audit Commission report ‘Tough Times’, which reveals that most councils have had to ‘reduce the quality and quantity of services’ they provide in the face of a real terms funding cut of £3.5billion over the last year. In addition to central government funding cuts, councils are faced with a £1.2bn funding squeeze driven by a loss of income and the government driven council tax freeze.
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Nicola Smith
I have a blog post up at the Huffington Post questioning the Government’s response to rising unemployment.
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Eurostat's latest data show GDP increased by 0.2% in both the euro area and the EU as a whole in Q3 2011, and by 1.4% compared with the same quarter of the previous year. The UK figure is quite good, but most countries haven't yet reported their Q3 growth.
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Neil Foster
On the day that North East unemployment hit 11.6% and UK youth unemployment broken through the 1 million mark, Alcan announced that it is to close its aluminium smelter in the region, with the loss of over 500 jobs. The company cites the UK’s high energy costs.
The TUC and unions in the industry have been warning Government about this risk for two years. The Alcan smelter in Lynemouth, Northumberland, is the county’s biggest private sector employer. It has been a mainstay of good quality and well paid employment for 40 years in an area still working hard to recover from the devastating closure of deep coal mines. Sited just two miles away from Ashington, once known as Europe’s biggest pit village, Alcan has made a considerable contribution to the local economy during the toughest of times.
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Anjum Klair
The unemployment data released today shows that Haringey is still the hardest place in Britain to find a job, in Haringey there are over twenty two dole claimants chasing every vacancy. Since we have been reporting on employment blackspots (March 2011) Haringey has appeared in the top 10 every month. We also reported that there was evidence of persistent poor local job prospects in parts of London; the unemployment data today shows that five London Boroughs are in the top 10, Haringey, Lewisham, Hackney, Waltham Forest and Tower Hamlets.
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Scarlet Harris
Tomorrow (Wednesday 16th November) the TUC will be holding a one day conference called The Equality Deficit. The conference, which is free and open to all, provides an opportunity for trade unionists, voluntary sector workers, campaigners and community organisers to explore the equality impact of the cuts.
Importantly, the conference aims to build alliances between the voluntary sector and trade unions. This isn’t about listing the many (and they really are many) ways in which the government’s swingeing cuts programme has disproportionately affected different equality groups. It’s about sharing knowledge, expertise, and experience and identifying campaigning and organising strategies.