Public sector net borrowing for the first quarter of the current financial year (2016-17) was £26.6bn, down from £27.9bn over the same period of 2016/17. On twitter the ONS are celebrating the lowest figure for the month of June since 2007. But this is hardly the point: the point of substance is…Read more…
Now is the time to take a lead on electoral reform
PCS has supported proportional representation (PR) since 2008 on the basis that these electoral systems open up a space for anti-austerity policies and parties and enable trade unions to better stand up for the interests of our members. The call for PR…Read more…
Another view on the referendum results: Unity – not division – against the metropolitan economy
The Resolution Foundation (RF) has led the way in interpreting referendum results according to economic and other factors. However their latest contribution “The importance of place“, seems to me to underplay the importance of place. Outside London and other metropolitan centres, the…Read more…
The trade union case for electoral reform
Trade unions and workers’ movements have a proud history championing democratic reform. From the Chartists pushing for universal suffrage to the Scottish TUC’s role in the campaign for the Scottish Parliament, unions have been at the forefront of demands for a better democracy that puts people at…Read more…
Getting it in proportion? Unions and electoral reform
At the last TUC Congress a motion on electoral reform was passed. It began by noting that the Conservative ‘majority’ government elected in 2015 in fact secured the support of just 24% of the British electorate. Since that election, we have had to campaign hard in defence of jobs, services, and…Read more…
What should we make of today’s employment figures?
Today’s employment figures tell us a story we’ve grown used to – employment is still growing, unemployment is coming down at a slower rate, wage growth is still slow and there are other signs that the labour market isn’t as strong as we’d ideally like. As Damian Green was quick to point out, the…Read more…
What should Theresa May’s new Industrial Strategy look like?
Last week, the new Prime Minister, Theresa May, expressed her support for a modern industrial strategy. As she created her first Cabinet, Mrs May pushed this agenda further forward by recasting the former BIS as a new Department for Business, Energy an…Read more…
As Altmann exits, where is Workie?
Pensions Minister Baroness Altmann is to leave government, we learned over the weekend. The reshuffle fortunes of her sidekick Workie, the much lampooned multi-coloured monster she launched to promote workplace pensions, have yet to be confirmed. Altma…Read more…
Note to Philip Hammond: In ALL 32 OECD countries where spending was cut, economic growth was significantly damaged
Since 2010, under the direction of international organisations and most economists, governments across the world have cut spending in order to restore public finances to health. OECD figures show this strategy has failed. Cuts have greatly damaged economic growth – to a far greater extent than…Read more…
G20 China: The diagnosis is in, but not the prescription
Its hot and smoggy here in Beijing Beijing, where G20 Labour and Employment Ministers have been meeting this week, but that’s not the main source of my frustration. Instead, I’m having a hard time getting my head around what Guy Ryder, head of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), described…Read more…
NHS funding ‘reset’ – Austerity comes first
In a stark comments given in an interview to the Health Service Journal this week, Jim Mackey, head of NHS Improvement made clear the new policy priority for the NHS – austerity comes first. Ahead of a set of announcements for further belt tightening expected soon – what’s been termed the NHS…Read more…
European attitudes to diversity & migration: room for improvement
A new analysis of European views on migration demonstrates that diversity is not as unpopular as the referendum result and right-wing populism in France, Germany and Italy might suggest. But it also reveals that British views are in some ways more like…Read more…
To tackle Brexit and a sluggish global economy, governments must invest in growth and jobs
I’m in Beijing, China for the annual G20 Labour & Employment Ministers meeting (LEMM). Priti Patel has already got on her plane and gone looking for work in Theresa May’s new Cabinet, but trade union leaders from across the world – known as the L20 – are still working…Read more…
Brexit’s implications for the rest of Europe: relaunch social Europe now!
As I’ve already reported on Stronger Unions, leaders of Europe’s trade union movement visited London on Monday. They were here in part to show solidarity with the British trade union movement post-Brexit. But they were also beginning to grapple with the implications for the rest of…Read more…
The nation didn’t vote for a Brexit without a plan. Before triggering article 50, we need much broader negotiations
Two-thirds (66%) of voters want to see a broader team negotiating Brexit, including cross-party politicians, trade unions and employers. That’s the finding of a new GQRR poll we’re publishing today. That went for both remainers (69%) and leavers (65%). Only 10% of respondents thought the government…Read more…
Why Theresa May is right – and the FT is wrong – about co-determination
It was the UK’s first woman Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who said “It’s a funny old world” as she was about to take her leave of Downing Street. Now the second woman to enter the UK’s most famous address, Theresa May, is setting out her policy stall and has advocated both an active industrial…Read more…
Theresa May echoes key TUC policy calling for workers on company boards
Theresa May, now the only candidate for the Conservative leadership, has called for company boards to include both workers and consumer representatives. She has also called for shareholder votes on remuneration to be held annually and for votes on individual directors’ pay packages to be made…Read more…
If it was safe enough to choose our new PM, online voting is safe enough for trade unions
The Conservative Party leadership election has been rapid, dramatic and completely bewildering. And now with the withdrawal of the last remaining challenger to Theresa May it looks like there won’t even be a vote at all. But there’s one thing in this campaign that has been overlooked in…Read more…
£150bn new lending is a tall order, even for Mark Carney
Since the referendum vote, the Bank of England have been working tirelessly to protect the economy. But the announcement the other day of an increase in banks “capacity for lending to UK households and businesses by up to £150 billion” needs to be taken with a big pinch of salt (hence ‘up to’). The…Read more…
Why cutting corporation tax would make things worse, not better
Before the Referendum – which seems like another era! – George Osborne said that post-Brexit he would introduce an emergency budget containing £30 billion of extra tax rises or spending cuts. Such a move would sharply escalate the austerity already shrouding much of the country, the impact of which…Read more…