John Wood's Archive 
I’m Campaigns and New Media Officer at the TUC, working on campaigns and advice online, as well as chipping in with issues around how new media (particularly social media) are impacting on industrial relations. I’m always tinkering with the system behind this blog (so if something’s broken it’s likely my fault) and on housekeeping duties to help out the other contributors.
I’ve been at the TUC since 2002, and before joining the team here, I worked on websites, eCommerce and online campaigning for Oxfam GB. In busman’s holiday style, I spend some of the spare time my kids leave me in blogging and online activism.
Web: http://www.touchstoneblog.org.uk
John Wood
Graphic from today’s Independent on our poll findings
The government should perhaps be a little more cautious over the level of public support they believe they enjoy for welfare cuts. We’ve got a new YouGov poll out today, which has found that those supporting the government approach are more likely to be those currently in a position of ignorance on the issues.
John Wood
Next month, the little known UN agency the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is holding a conference in Dubai, to discuss regulating the Internet. The World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) is an event that could have serious implications for the freedoms we’ve become used to online.
The ITU isn’t like many parts of the UN that we’re used to working with. It was set up in 1865 (predating the TUC by 3 years!) with the remit of co-ordinating telegram systems globally. Since then, it’s picked up responsibility for other telecoms networks too, and does good work to make sure the world’s wires and airwaves don’t get scrambled. They set inter-country telecoms regulations periodically, and the last time they did this was in 1988.
John Wood
Another month and another gloomy set of employment results. We’ve been tracking economic indicators since the start of the recession in our Economic Reports series, but sometimes you need to take a step back from the snapshots to see the longer term trends as well, if you’re going to appreciate the depth of the hole we find ourselves in.
So we’re using Touchstone blog to launch a new Economic Dashboard, giving a quick way to see trends on many of the main economic indicators since 2008. Every month, we’ll update the charts, so we can plot any progress the country is making towards recovery, or help make the case for policies that will make a difference.
John Wood
Wages failing to keep up with inflation, tax and benefit changes and cuts in public services all combined are going to dramatically reduce the living standards of many British families by 2013, according to our latest research.
In Unhappy Families, the first analysis of this ‘living standards gap’, we’ve looked at the effect on four typical British families, and found their living standards are set to be hit by between 6% and 10%. Have a look at the headline results we’ve found for our families:
John Wood
I’ve been playing the Chartered Managment Institute and Institute of Consulting’s new promotional web game (in my lunch break, honest!). It’s a novel way to convince young people that a career in business is for them, especially in one of the noble disciplines of management or consulting.
But if Battle for the Boardroom offers us a peek into the psyche of British managment, I’m a little worried.
John Wood
“Give us your ideas for a new Bank Holiday” runs the heading on DCMS’ latest press release. I was pleasantly surprised to see that, as the TUC have been suggesting for quite some time that adding a new bank holiday to the UK’s calendar could help end our embarrassing honour of having the fewest public holidays in Europe.
However, on closer inspection, Tourism and Heritage Minister John Penrose’s latest wheeze is not actually a “new bank holiday” but rather a recycled old one – the tease! He’s running a “pre-consultation” on whether we should move the May Day bank holiday, and if so, where we should stick it.
John Wood
Tax Credit changes are taking effect from today that could leave families thousands of pounds out of pocket. Along with Mumsnet, we’ve put together a quick online Tax Credit changes calculator to help you find out how your household will be affected.
It lets you add your details, such as income level and number of children, and it’ll estimate how they will be affected by the tax changes taking place from today and from April next year.
John Wood
The latest figures from the Land Registry for England and Wales are out, and they show house sales increased by a rather paltry 1% from August 2009 to August 2010. Looking closer though, a significant chunk of that 1% increase (43.8% of it in fact) has been in the form of million pound plus properties, which despite these austere times seem to be going like hot cakes – a whopping 44% increase in Millionaire’s Row sales.
With the same report showing house prices up 3.4% overall (7.6% in London), first time buyers and low- and middle earners are being priced even further out of the property market than they already were. Such diverging experiences of the property market hardly bode well for us all being in it together.
John Wood
The jobs figures are out today, and show a headline rate of five JSA claimants chasing every job vacancy listed at Jobcentre Plus. This doesn’t tell the whole story though, and there are huge regional variations, from 43.2 claimants competing for every job opening in Hackney North, through to just 0.7 in Lichfield.
I’ve made (with the help of some great code made available by Tim Craft) an interactive map, that lets you see what this data means at a glance. You can also plot the same constituencies by political party returned at the last election, to get more of a sense of the areas represented.
