What with the snow, it’s been a testing couple of days for Transport for London. But the interview with the organisation’s head, Peter Hendy, in today’s Standard paints a encouraging picture. I was particularly struck by this passage: “It doesn’t help either that TfL, which employs 28,000 people, has just announced swingeing job cuts of
Given the worries that many in the private sector have over both their financial and job security, the ‘pay gap’ figures highlighted by Francis Maude could well provoke a bit of anger. Here’s how the Mail reports them: State workers now earn an average £62 a week more than their private sector counterparts – a
Right, I’ve been determined to avoid posting about the snow, but this FT article is just too eye-catching to go unnoted. It reports that today’s snowfall, and the increased absenteeism it’s precipitated, has cost the economy around £1 billion. Hardly ideal during a recession, and things could get worse. Here’s a quote from Stephen Alambritis
Competent performance from George Osborne just now, setting out the Tories’ “new banking settlement” by which – among other things – the Bank of England would have greater powers to “call time on excessive debt”. It sounds promising enough. But, as usual with regulatory systems, the proof of this particular pudding will come with the
A striking quote from Will Hutton, speaking at this conference I’m at: “Royal Bank of Scotland was run much more disastrously than the Icelandic banks.”
So here I am at a conference put on today by my former colleagues at Reform. It’s all about ‘A new economic agenda’, and the speakers include George Osborne, Vince Cable, John McFall, Tony McNulty and Will Hutton. First, though, Ken Clarke, who’s just delivered a 15-minute address on competitiveness. It demonstrated, perfectly, why Cameron’s
With Brown on the ropes, the battle to become Labour’s next (post-election) leader is in full swing. And, according to Patrick Hennessy’s article in the Sunday Telegraph, it could be throwing up some odd alliances. Here’s how Hennessy describes the recent tussle over Heathrow: “Objecting to the third runway is a handy way of appealing
A snippet from the Times report on Brown’s “building programme” for council houses: Mr Brown has the support of Margaret Beckett, the Housing Minister, in pushing through new regulations, according to government sources, but Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, is said to be resisting proposals that could add billions of pounds to public debt. If you
In an interview in today’s Independent, John Armitage, the chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), admits taxpayers may shoulder a greater burden for the 2012 Games as private finance options dry up. Here’s how the Indy puts it in an accompanying article: John Armitt said it was possible that no private sector money would
Sunder Katwala, General Secretary of the Fabian Society, makes the case for a pre-election Lib-Lab coaltion in this week’s New Statesman. His central points are that it could save Labour from electoral wipeout and would enable the two parties to outflank the Tories on “progressive” policy. This paragraph pretty much sums it up: “The coalition
Just in case the GOP needs another reminder to broaden its coalition if wants to make headway in 2012, here’s a new study from Gallup. It finds that just 5 states – representing 2 percent of the population – can be classed as Republican (i.e. a significant plurality of adults there identify themselves as Republicans).
Matthew Parris on top form in today’s Times: Fact: unsourced rumours circulated in the media last weekend that Lord Mandelson had rescued the Government by smoothing ruffled feathers in India after the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, “mishandled” his visit there. Surmise: The source of these rumours was Peter Mandelson. Fact: Miliband has entertained ambitions for
As numerous Labour MPs have been saying recently, Brown needs to start doing something different if Labour are to reverse the Tories’ momentum in the the polls. But, interviewed in the latest New Statesman, Alistair Darling indicates that Labour High Command are happy to stick by the old, tried-and-tested methods which are no longer getting
Earlier, from the IFS Green Budget launch, I wrote of how long it’s going to take for future governments to pay off Brown’s debt binge. Above is the graph, from the Green Budget, which illustrates the point. As you can see, it will take until around 2032 for us to get back to the 40%
I’m embedded at the IFS/Morgan Stanley Green Budget event – at which the two organisations present their own prognoses for the UK economy and public finances – and my head’s swimming with numbers, forecasts and graphs. Two things are standing out, though: just how much uncertainty there is about where we’re headed, and how restricted
If you want to know how anti-competitive a third runway at Heathrow could be, then check out this article in today’s Times. It highlights a study by the Campaign for Better Transport which claims that – thanks to the Government’s climate change target – Heathrow expansion would mean every other airport in Britain having to
This article in today’s FT is an intriguing addendum to my post yesterday about Labour accepting the “headless chicken” charge. It points out that Gordon Brown has now been “warned by Labour ministers and MPs to stop churning out initiatives to tackle the recession”. And then goes on to describe an “anxious” parliamentary meeting of
Just how far-reaching could the Lords-for-hire scandal turn out to be? Pretty far, if the latest reports are anything to go by. This morning’s Mail revealed that 1-in-5 Lords act as consultants or advisers to “outside interests”. And now the Standard discloses that Jack Straw has received money from one of the peers at the
Over at his blog, Robert Peston sees the independence of the Bank of England being eroded as the recession progresses. Basically, the worry is that once the Bank embarks on quantitative easing the Treasury will have to steer monetary policy in order to safeguard taxpayers’ cash. Here’s a sizeable excerpt from Peston’s rather more detailed explanation:
A passage in Rachel Sylvester’s column today quotes two Labour figures – one a Downing St adviser and the other a “normally loyal minister” – effectively accepting the “headless chicken” charge that the Tories aim at Brown & Co: “The long succession of announcements may have diminishing returns,” a Downing Street adviser admits. “We’re burning