The Carbon Price Floor is no great loss
20 March 2014In freezing the Carbon Price Floor, George Osborne has taken some good advice.
The Blog
The ‘National Well-Being’: The recovery is coming too late for most and not at all for the elderly
19 March 2014The Chancellor is about to announce the budget for the next fiscal year and it is safe to say it will be littered with the words ‘recovery’, ‘job not done’ and ‘tough decisions’. As to what else, we have been told there will be one or two surprise ‘crowd-pleasers’ (another penny off beer?) and a… [Read More]
Crimea voted ‘Out’. Yatsenyuk should offer East Ukraine the same choice
17 March 2014Both Ukraine’s territorial integrity and Russia’s respect for the 1994 Budapest memorandum are dead in the water. The EU and Obama are powerless to stop further land grabs. Avoiding bloodshed and establishing stability is imperative.
Labour should look again at Tony Benn’s arguments for democracy
14 March 2014‘If one meets a powerful person ask them five questions: ‘What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?’ If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live… [Read More]
How fast are zero hours contracts growing?
13 March 2014Zero hours estimates are rising, through greater use and greater awareness. People deserve to be paid something for their time available.
We use less energy and pay more for it (55 per cent more)
12 March 2014Energy prices and Labour’s cost of living crisis campaign seem to have lost some momentum in recent weeks. The party political has been overshadowed by more important events in Ukraine. It could also be that Labour don’t want to sound too much of a Debbie Downer during the release of yet more positive GDP figures.… [Read More]
The only ‘Party of In’: what arguments will Clegg pick?
10 March 2014The Daily Mail, Guardian and Times all speculate that Nick Clegg’s Lib Dem leadership is teetering this morning. His riposte is surprising – to double down on his love for the EU at his party’s spring conference. He is to debate twice with UKIP leader Nigel Farage, on LBC radio on 26th March, and on… [Read More]
Tension in Crimea: What will Putin do next?
7 March 2014Much of the comment on events in Ukraine has been discussed through a push and pull narrative between the East and West; on one side, the EU is pushing for a modern, westward-facing Ukraine, and on the other Russia is desperately trying to pull the ex-Soviet state back into its orbit, using political puppet strings… [Read More]
Migration’s effects are more social than economic
6 March 2014Evidence to support Paul Collier’s claim that migration has greater social than economic effects is easy to find.
Young people’s response to the cost of university and the recession
5 March 2014Education, education, education Among the findings of the ONS’s paper on young people in the labour market for this quarter there is, unsurprisingly, double the amount of young people (aged 16-24) in full time education than there were 30 years ago. Creeping up to half (42 per cent) of the UK’s next generation have carried on their… [Read More]