Nye Bevan has been rolling in his grave so much this year I doubt he can remember whether he’s facing up or down. After NHS privatisation was finally sealed in April, the principal of free and publicly accountable universal healthcare is now being further undermined by talk of GPs charging patients for their appointments.
Today George Osborne more than halved the amount of tax the UK’s nascent shale gas industry will need to pay, from 62 per cent to 30 per cent.
Today, at 6AM in a release barely more than a paragraph long, the Treasury announced that the British Geological Survey (BGS) had found 1300trn cubic feet worth of shale gas trapped in the rocks beneath Lancashire.
The chancellor George Osborne will make a speech today in which he will say the government is “making work pay” through tax and benefit changes. Making work pay is an admirable goal and something that everyone on the left supports. The problem, however, is that the government’s idea of making work pay is radically different to that of most progressives, as a quick glance at today’s Daily Telegraph makes clear.
Tentative GDP figures draws our attention to the fall in wages and its impact upon union rights, writes Tony Burke.
Debbie Abrahams MP, PPS to the shadow health secretary Andy Burnham and chair of the PLP health committee, looks at what Jeremy Hunt has in store for the NHS.
Addressing a major clean energy summit this week, David Cameron has the opportunity to break his silence and rediscover his old enthusiasm for green politics.
The persistence of David Cameron’s happiness agenda has undermined the left, providing an illusion of progress while infuriating neoliberals, says Craig Berry.
Clare McNeil, senior research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), looks at the energy policy and environmental impact of the budget.
Cormac Hollingsworth looks at what happens when the private sector collapses for a second time. It begins with D and ends with ouble dip recession.
