The Tories may have run a vague and convoluted election campaign, but now that they’re in with a wafer-thin majority, prime minister David Cameron laid out his policy plans yesterday (May 28) , as…Read more…
Bash, slash, cut and freeze
Bash the unions, slash welfare spending, cut benefits for the young, freeze in-work benefits and add a generous helping of deep austerity cuts. The Queen’s Speech shows the Tories are nasty again….Read more…
Weak GDP growth underpinned by hefty decline in net trade, as falling prices distort picture
GDP figures today are not exactly straightforward to unravel. The headline messages are the same as last month. Quarterly growth in 2015Q1 was unrevised at 0.3%, down from 0.6% in Q4. Compared with a year ago, growth is unrevised at 2.4%. The output fi…Read more…
Syriza’s struggle is our struggle
The Greek Syriza government is still locked in crisis negotiations with ‘the group formerly known as the Troika’ (the IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission) over releasing…Read more…
#QueensSpeech 2015: Immigration Bill will fuel undercutting and hostility
Today measures for a new Immigration Bill were announced in the Queen’s Speech. The Bill sets out a fundamentally contradictory position, first aired by David Cameron in a speech last week, that you can tackle exploitation of workers by taking their rights away. Helping bad bosses The Bill will…Read more…
#QueensSpeech 2015: Referendum Bill raises yet more questions
The Queen’s Speech today was silent on the hugely important issue of the negotiating strategy the government intends to pursue ahead of the EU referendum, and few other questions were answered by the references to the Bill we expect to see published tomorrow. Speak softly and run like hell…Read more…
Tory ‘toothless’ hours law
A key coalition government measure came into force on Tuesday (May 26) – the banning of exclusivity clauses in zero hours contracts. Now, employers cannot block workers who are on the…Read more…
Why take on trade unions ahead of the Paris climate treaty talks?
The TUC backs campaigns for green jobs and supports trade union efforts that green the workplace to good effect through energy saving schemes. Unions support investment in energy productivity because official data shows that the average rate of UK comm…Read more…
The trade agreement that threatens our safety.
Last year I wrote about the dangers to health and safety from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) where the European Commission and US Government want to reduce “barriers” to…Read more…
More Right to Buy – what will go wrong
Right to Buy likely to go wrong Worryingly the Queen’s Speech confirms that there will be a bill to extend the Right to Buy to tenants in Housing Associations. The TUC opposes this measure on two grounds; that the funding model of housing associations would be seriously damaged by such a…Read more…
#QueensSpeech 2015: nothing to say on international development?
Everyone agrees that this is a crucial year for international development. The Millennium Development Goals expire this year, and will be replaced at the UN General Assembly in September with 17 sustainable development goals, aiming to eradicate global…Read more…
Hanging in the balance
The future of the Scottish Agricultural Wages Board (SAWB) hangs in the balance as the new Scottish government look at the option of scrapping it yet again in a consultation set to close at the end…Read more…
People are not your priority, Mr Cameron
Commenting on today’s Queen’s Speech, Unite general secretary, Len McCluskey said, “Given the profound challenges facing this nation, it is staggering that a priority for this government is…Read more…
£12 billion of benefit cuts will do a lot of damage
The new government starts work with commitments to benefit cuts that will be difficult to deliver but politically impossible to avoid. All the options open to the government will cause serious hardship but still won’t deliver the scale of savings the Chancellor wants. It’s very likely that one…Read more…
Fighting the battle of ideas
Richard Angell recalls the moves a couple of years ago to have Progress, the organisation he directs, excluded from the Labour Party. Ungenerously, he omits to record that Len McCluskey spoke…Read more…
ACT NOW! The next few days are vital for EU-US trade deal
On Thursday, the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee (known as INTA) will vote on a series of amendments to a draft report on the EU-US trade deal TTIP (the Trans-Atlantic Trade…Read more…
Feeding the meter
More than half a million people struggling with debt have forcibly had prepay gas and electricity meters installed by their energy suppliers, a BBC investigation has found. Figures reveal that…Read more…
Housing sell off: ‘sheer stupidity’
David Cameron has confirmed that his right to buy extension to all housing association homes will now be part of the Queen’s Speech tomorrow (Wednesday May 27). The scheme, in effect, is…Read more…
Taking away workers’ rights will make Brexit more likely says TUC poll
As Nigel Stanley reported on Touchstone last week, we had an opinion poll in the field immediately after the election, to find out more about why people voted the way we did. We held a few of the…Read more…
EU referendum: workers’ rights and the right to vote are at stake
Tomorrow’s Queen’s Speech will announce an EU referendum bill which will be published on Thursday (although the issue of who gets to vote was trailed over the weekend.) Last Friday, the Prime Minister began his campaign to ‘renegotiate’ Britain’s membership with other…Read more…