Retired Professor of Political Economy
(Lancaster University, UK - retired 2021)
(also #ProfDJ across the Lune Valley)
Contributor: North West Bylines #NoBridge
Once again, the UK has the potential to be at the forefront of an innovative industry - the technologies that will foster/accelerate the move to net zero & underpin the green transition.
However, if you're familiar with the history of British technology enterprises over the last 100 years, you will (perhaps rightly) know to expect this advantage will be squandered by a lack of investment, short-termism & the preference of financial services to invest abroad.
More evidence that gender diversity is not only an issue of fairness but also an issue of efficacy.
Building on studies in other sectors that have shown diverse teams produce better results, new research into surgery show gender diverse teams in operating theatres enhance patient recovery from operations & reduce complications.
The more balanced the team, the better the result - suggesting gender parity in the (health) workplace has clear benefits!
when Brexit border checks, charges & subsequent import 'friction' met government IT procurement, the likelihood of further delays at the birder for perishable imports was always high; and so it has come to pass.
The Govt. is claiming these are teething problems, but we can assume it will only be a short time before they attempt to shift the blame to importers & freight firms claiming they were insufficiently prepared
The HoC Public Accounts Comm. has concluded the civil service lack both skills & capacity to property oversee infrastructure projects contributing both to the evident delays & budgeting problems.
Civil servants have become too reliant on outsourced expertise (consultants & the contractors) for evaluation, with the state no longer able to act as an 'intelligent client'.
The Tory attrition and politicisation of the civil service has (and is having) sigficant detrimental impact.
Another bit of Brexit related attempted policy cherry-picking comes unstuck.
The UK would like to continue to be part of the world's largest nuclear fusion experiment (based in the EU).... but the EU is now insisting that this can only continue if the UK rejoins the bloc's Euratom research scheme.
Once again the UK hopes it can knit together a bespoke research collaboration, but it seems the EU has lost patience with such 'special arrangements'.
When the UK’s deputy foreign secretary has to admit that around 40% of all money laundered globally likely flows through London & the Crown Dependencies, you can bet that such an estimate will be on the low side.
There are many reasons that the UK's global reputation is increasingly tarnished & the work in financial services to hide & process criminal/illegal funds is contributing to that malaise.
So much for the value of financial services to the UK
Team Starmer & the unions have come away from their summit today all suggesting that they have reached a deal on the New Deal for Working People, which the unions assert has seen a recommitment to its original shape & goals.
From cynics corner this looks like both sides deciding this argument can wait until after the election & for now it will pay to be seen not to be squabbling...
So, if/once labour gain power, the debate on workers rights will quickly flare up (again)
So the Migrant Advisory Committee, after a 14 week investigation has found 'no evidence' of any deliberate abuse of the international student visa scheme;
they're coming here to study.
As the FT delicately puts it:
this has 'placed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in a bind, forcing him to either confront those on the Conservative right who want it scrapped, or ignore the advisory group'!
Watch this space.... which way he jumps will tell us a lot about the future of the (rump of) the Tory party
So, Tesco's boss has just seen his wages for the year gone, nearly double to around £10m....
As you might get the unions are not pleased, especially when society wide wage growth is under 6% in nominal terms and essentially still flat-lining in real terms.
The Sado-monetarists of Threadneedle St. will be saying, 'aha but CEOs are a small group who work hard & don't impact inflation'; in other words: one (economic) law for us & our mates, another for you lot!
The BoE will be (I should think) suggesting interest rates should not go down yet, after ONS reported wage rises remained at 5.7% over the last 3 months.
But, a focus on nominal wages is misleading; it takes no account of inflation adjusted real wages, that continue to lag behind pre-austerity levels & so by only focussing on recent months underplays (obscures) that wages are catching up previous loses....
So prepare for a longer wait for interest rates to drop
If crime is falling but our perceptions are that its just as bad, if not worse... what's behind this misperception.
Unsurprisingly, the news media is skewing our perceptions; as crime gets (relatively) rarer, so of course, it becomes more note-worthy, and we see more stories about criminal activity (and the relentless crime-based dramas cannot be helping).
The key problem is policy seems to be driven by voters' perceptions not what's actually happening?
If you like economic anthropology/sociology & are interested in the work of artists, then Alison Gerber's concise & highly readable, The Work of Art: Value in Creative Careers (2017) is for you. Assessing how value is seen in (manly US) art worlds, Gerber doesn't model or use aggregated statistics, but actually asks artists & reports/reflects on what they tell her. the result is compelling & informative!
You'll be unsurprised that the Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed 'extra' NHS spending promised by the Tories was eaten up by inflation;
this is what happens when the focus is no nominal not real (inflation-adjusted) values.
Its been obvious that the defunding of the NHS was at least partly achieved by being publicly obscure (with media collusion) about inflation-adjusted funding & instead trumpeting absolute/nominal funding increases.
One way of understanding the drifting apart of Europe & North America on hours worked is that the Europeans have made a choice to work less (even if it means overall less economic activity);
Or, that in America, due to private health care & inequality, workers cannot afford to work less (even if they want to)...
or, you can take the view that European economies are in decline due to a loss of incentives (so taxes must be reduced?)
take your pick... but of course it may be all three
The move back to the office is certainly underway, with working from home being de-normalised & back to an exception (if now more frequent).
But what is the impact on those who for health or mobility reasons are only able to work from home.
In many ways WFH was (accidentally?) a boon for 'disabled' employment, allowing many to access jobs that would have been difficult if attendance at office was required.
How will their opportunities fare in the move away from WFH?
New research/polling from The Sutton Trust outlines the impact of the cost of living crisis on students & their experience of university.
Around two-thirds of students have needed to take on part-time work while studying, with an impact on their studies including missed classes as well as missed assignment deadlines.
While more evident for students from the most deprived areas, many rich(er) students also need to work to survive university.
'It’s not a story of one bad apple, or one bad chief executive, or one bad institutional culture, or one underprivileged area. In 2022, 80 of the country’s 193 maternity units were deemed unsafe by the Care Quality Commission. That definitely wasn’t the austerity promise, not even in the small print: creating a country not safe to give birth in'!
One more dimensions of the Tories wrecking of the NHS
Its crunch time for the current university business model as (in a representative sample of 24 unis), deposits from international students ahead of studying in 2024/25 have dropped by over 50%.
Having been thrust into a cross-subsidy model where non-UK students have been keeping many universities afloat, this drastic reduction (if widespread) will either force universities into yet another business model (who knows what?) or will see some/many bankrupted!
When Rishi Sunak's strategy for trying to retain votes is explicitly to confirm its 'better the devil you know', you can but wonder who advised him that self-identifying as a devil was good optics.
(Yes, I know it a common enough saying but....)
I'm sure at the very least the political cartoonists will have a field day with this...
so I think we can now truthfully state:
Rishi Sunak = the Devil
Can't wait to see the Tory election leaflets with that as their strap line!
Northern Ireland is now a sanctuary for migrants in fear of the Tories' Rwanda deportation policy.
The High Court of Northern Ireland has struck down key elements of UK Illegal Migration Act, as incompatible with the Windsor Agreement between the EU & UK.
It also ruled that other aspects remain incompatible with the ECHR.
So, those migrants who might have skipped over the border to the RoI, now can remain in NI from where it would seem they now cannot be deported.
Yup, sounds like a good idea... even better curfew & controlled visiting (to vet lobbyists).... might quickly dissuade the grifters & opportunists - link that with a lottery for a two year term in the upper house, and we're looking at some great reforms....
(oh hold on, I've just come to... was I hallucinating there?)
Yes, and all good... but the one fly in the ointment (as it were), is that in such citizen assemblies, the permanent bureaucracy gains power through continuity - now that's not fatal as there are all sorts of ways of dealing with that, but nonetheless its not an insgnifcnat problem - but overall I've always favoured a lottery-filled limited term citizens' second house
Surely its time for Reform UK to be forced to rename itself 'The Party of Richard Tice' given his role in bank-rolling it.... and of course as you would expect Nigel Farage is not using his won money to pay the party's expenses.
[Oddly (?) I'm reminded of Richard Branson's business model across his Virgin conglomerate.]
If, as many suggest, rich people's contributions to political parties should be tightly constrained by law, that would be then of Reform!
