Retired Professor of Political Economy
(Lancaster University, UK - retired 2021)
(also #ProfDJ across the Lune Valley)
Contributor: North West Bylines #NoBridge
'We need to build 90,000 social homes a year for ten years, with all rents tied to local incomes. ... this would not only eradicate homelessness, it would pay for itself – returning an impressive £37.8bn back to the economy in just three years. It would also save the taxpayer money, boost jobs, reduce the burden of poor housing on our NHS & improve children’s life chances.'
You'll be unsurprised to see that the UK's standard of living has improved (on average) less than many developed countries (exceptions being we're doing better than France, Greece & Spain).... so while over the period 2007-2019 living standards have risen (just) other countries have done better.
And real (average) earnings were only 3.5% higher than 2009 in 2023.
More evidence of the lack of economic rewards the country has gained from voting in a Tory Govt.
New research from UCL & the International Institute for Sustainable Development suggests that there are now enough sustainable/green energy projects running or in development that no new fossil fuel capacity is required.
As current fossil fuel capacity now degrades/reduces, so green energy capacity can take its place.
This is not how the fossil fuel firms see it, but as emissions keep rising (up 1.1% last year) this must become a crucial pivot point!
Perhaps unsurprisingly in a cost of living crisis (alongside rising costs for attending university) most prospective students rate gaining a better salary as a key (if not the most important) motivation around course choice.
And around half of all applicants/students are worried about managing personal & family commitments around study (with more women than men expressing this concern - well, there's a surprise).
If you're interested in feminist economics, you might want to check out the Women's Budget Group's new website which offers an excellent resource for economists & is an easy way to access their research & policy papers.
The good news is that nursing vacancies have fallen to a new low in England... the not so good news is this reflects the success of foreign recruitment (new nurses from abroad has risen five-fold in the five years to 2023).
While we can now (at least) fill the vacancies, this does not reflect (yet) any surge in training our own nurses, but continues our reliance on poaching staff from other health systems (which is not a great strategy, really).
A third Tory MP has defected to Labour - Mark Logan, Bolton North East.... like others he's not standing at the next election & in this case is seeking to join Labour & support its campaign.
In case you've lost count that's now 78 Tory MPs who will not be contesting the election.... not exactly a vote of confidence in Rishi.
And, to be frank, surely Tory voters must be wondering, if even its own MPs won't support the party, why would they?
And here is one index of how seriously voters take assurances by both Labour & Conservative parties that they will not be raising taxers after the election... the majority simply don't believe it.
And indeed why would they... everyone can see more money needs to be spent by the state (and have been sold on the notion 'there's no magic money tress' - of course this is a distortion, but a widely held distortion of possible fiscal actions, nonetheless)
'How [Labour] deals with Abbott in the next 48 hours will be a defining moment. She is but one MP, but, more than Starmer’s high command seems to understand, she matters: to many of Britain’s minorities, to women, to working-class voters.... the first Black woman to enter parliament must be accorded the dignity that her place in history deserves'!
How Labour 'deals with' Abbott may well inform how many now vote!
Fed up with election coverage (already)... well, why not check out this list of the top 20 Clint Eastwood films - its his 94th Birthday - and see if you agree with the ranking, or whether the Guardian has left out your favourite Eastwood movie.
It'll take your mind of the political stuff for a few minutes (and you need that, I know I did).
Well, I supposed its good to be known for something... but this?
In France, Emmanuel Macron has warned those tempted to vote for Marine Le Pen, that my well suffer later regrets... so the shouldn't 'be like the British who cried after Brexit'!
Yup, that's what we're known for now; shooting ourselves in the (political) foot & then crying about it later.
The attempted smearing of Angela Rayner has not got very far.... Manchester Police are taking no further action regarding accusations of her breaking electoral & neither are Stockport Council or the HMRC (all have formally stated there's no case to answer).
Of course, the point of the smear was to get to this state before the election & then say .... 'well of course there's no smoke without a fire'... but of course THERE WAS NO SMOKE AT ALL!
On one side we have the BCC arguing ''We urgently need to get a better trading relationship with our closest neighbour,' (FT); on the other EU sources say while they're looking for closer relations with a Labour Govt. there will be no concessions, with closer economic relations requiring the UK to accept 'rules & responsibilities' (Guardian).
So an end-game is in sight; a better relationship with the EU but as a rule taking external partner.
here's the Guardian's guide to what might happen when/if Daniel Křetínský's buys the Post Office.
The key point is the sunset clause on commitments like union recognition & universal service provision - in five years time, he (and his company) can do what they want with the post office...
Prepare to enjoy the last five years of postal services as you know it... in 2029 things may start to look very different!
So Junior Doctors will be striking just before the election having lost patience with the lack of any progress in pay negotiations, to match the reassurances the were given when they paused previous strike action.
Rishi Sunak claims this looks 'politically motivated'; only in the sense that he & his familiars have failed to deliver any repair of doctors' standard of living.
This is part of Tory engineered health crisis that itself is politically motivated!
Q. what does the treatment of much maligned MP Diane Abbot tell us about the Labour Party?
Maurice Mcleod suggests quite a lot, and its not so good....
And just in case you've forgotten, in the run up to the 2017 election nearly half of all offensive & abusive tweets sent to female MPs (and this was a lot of tweets) were sent to Diane Abbot.
So, now it looks like the Labour Party is joining in with the Trolls (albeit more subtly).
Just in case you have missed it.... currency traders & others with an eye on the BoE, have bid up the price of sterling against the Euro, as prospects for a reduction in UK interest rates fade.
Well, I did warn you that the BoE Directors were gaslighting us when they claimed a reduction in rates was looking likely...
Of course, they'll say things have changed, but my guess is there was never a prospect of rates being reduced this side of summer - we all need to suffer more!
Hugh Eakin' highly readable Picasso’s War: How Modern Art Came to America (2022), focusses on the campaign firstly by John Quinn, then Alfred Barr (MOMA) to raise Picasso's profile in the USA in the first half of C20th & is an accessible account of the art worlds of New York & Paris from 1900-1945. Its perhaps a little more journalistic than analytical but relates a fascinating story well, even if it needed more illustrations.
The Office for National Statistics has been having some trouble with its key reports (such as the Labour Force Survey) & aside from dealing with budget cuts, it has also confronted (under-reported) strike action on the removal of flexible working for staff as well as a (linked?) growing exodus of staff (many in high-expertise middle level positions have left for the private sector); less than half as many people joined the ONS as left in 2023.
Here is the (two dimensional) political placing of the parties in the forthcoming UK election from Political Compass....
If you thought you didn't have an awful lot of choice, the fact that all major parties are (on this assessment) siting in the blue (Right/Authoritarian) quadrant will confirm that suspicion
Although the Right wing media is reporting Diane Abbot has had the whip restored but will be 'banned' from standing, what seems likely to happen is that she may/will not be selected as the candidate for her constituency, thereby muddying the waters on whether she has banned or not supported by the local party....
There's going to be a lot of contrasting narratives in the next few days, but its not clear whether if rejected she'd have time to organise standing as an independent
In the looking glass world OFWAT, reducing or abandoning fines for sewage & other regulatory infractions will encourage the water firms to expand their investment in infrastructure to solve the problems their lack of investment has caused....
So, the one (weak) sanction that they have their abandoning on the basis of an assumption that the water firms will amend their behaviour through persuasion....
If you think this seems a strategy that is unlikely to be successful, I'm with you.
To be clear: I don't have any sympathy for the Tories...
but the key problem they have (like any government after a decade & a half in power), is when, for instance they say they are going to clamp down on tax avoidance, its not unreasonable to ask, well if you are going to do it now why haven't you done it sometime in the previous fifteen years.....
And, its pretty difficult to campaign on a dreadful recent record, while saying well, now we can rectify this often noted problem.
I have a lot of sympathy for students who see themselves getting bad value from their degrees & find trying to balance staying financially solvent & studying a sometimes impossible challenge;
But I also have sympathy with university staff trying to encourage in-person attendance (knowing as I do how degraded on-line learning can be).
Sadly, this crisis in higher education is driven by external forces that are pitting students & staff against each other.
