OECD questions Coalition decision to scrap Future Jobs Fund
The OECD’s Employment Outlook has praised the Labour Government’s Future Jobs Fund. It says the decision to scrap the scheme by the Coalition is “of concern”.
Green Politics
Same old tricks from the Public Sector Pensions Commission
Today’s Public Sector Pensions Commission report is based on the politics of envy and a standard accounting trick to get some scary numbers.
Who will buy our exports?
George Osborne’s first budget has sparked a heated debate about its effect on jobs. The Government and the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) believe private sector employment will increase rapidly enough to bring about a significant reduction in unemployment over the next five years, despite the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs in the public sector.
New reports into so-called ‘climategate’ all exonerate the scientists
Professor Michael Mann is the guy behind the infamous ‘hockey stick graph’ made famous by Al Gore. He was one of the few world-leading climate scientists unfortunate enough to get caught up in the manufactured controversy around the so-called ‘climategate’ scandal.
Lib Dem voters supportive of Budget – but with doubts over VAT & corp tax
Two polls of grassroots Conservative and Liberal Democrat members over the weekend have revealed Lib Dem dissatisfaction over VAT and corporation tax and that Chris Huhne is the least popular member of the Cabinet among Tory activists.
EU deal on capping bonuses will change the financial sector
Labour may have temporarily lost legislative power in Westminster, but Labour MEPs still have that power and used it to great effect last week, securing strict limits on upfront cash bonuses to ensure that bonuses are linked to long-term success rather than mere risk-taking.
G20 summit masks US-EU tensions on economic recovery
The G8 and G20 summits may have seemed a damp squib, but the final communiqué, always drafted so that everybody can go away saying that they’ve won, only masks the fundamentally different approaches to economic policy by the US and by European countries.
Balls: This was “the Budget from hell”
Ed Balls hit out at the Coalition Government for “the most unfair and regressive Budget in a generation” today, calling it “reckless and unfair”.
Time to fix the food chain and prevent further rainforest destruction
Surprisingly the meat and dairy industry produces around 18 per cent of the world’s climate-changing gases; cows, pigs and chickens in our factory farms are pumped full of high-protein feed to make them grow quickly and produce large yields.
Economic update – July 2010
George Osborne delivered his first budget on June 22nd, describing it as ‘unavoidable’, ‘fair’ and ‘progressive’. In fact, it was none of these. An ‘emergency’ budget was not needed, whether to calm financial markets or for any other reason.