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By Darrell Goodliffe Let's be quite frank. Lord Adonis's 'intervention' in the BA/Unite dispute was a disgrace. Rather than take at least a balanced view Adonis laid into Unite: "It's totally unjustified, this strike, on the merits of the issues at stake, and I do call on the union to engage constructively with the company." I struggled in vain to find remarks from Adonis condemning the outrageous way that BA used the courts to quash the first strike ballot; or...
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By Rachel Happe Social software matters. It matters because it allows for quality to surface, modesty to win, and effort to be rewarded – all things that hierarchical processes in organisations often subvert. Traditionally in such organisations, position in the hierarchy – rather than effort or work quality - determines influence and power. This is not to say that all hierarchical organisations do a bad job with rewarding and recognising people for the quality of their information and effort, but...
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By Julia Hobsbawm They say that this will be the Mumsnet Election. Parent Power at the polling booth will be more decisive, perhaps, than the money of a certain Mr Ashcroft ploughed into marginals. But you could be forgiven for thinking that parenthood, and working parenthood in particular, is a marginal political issue unless you have ‘poor parenting skills’ or are just poor. Then there is money and some joined-up political thinking (Sure Start) coming your way. The main parties...
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The Labour movement column By Anthony Painter /@anthonypainter Dear friend, We now know, fewer of you guys applied for work permits to work in the Swiss financial sector last year than the year before. So it seems that despite all the hue and cry and the Mayor of London jumping up and down about the devastation that tax changes were going to cause to the City, we’re actually stuck with each other. You don’t really want to leave and,...
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By David Beeson It may seem hard to believe, but all that noise about bullying or not bullying wasn’t really the most significant political event of the weekend. The row was just a lot of froth to distract from something much more far-reaching. Fortunately, when the dust settles, the froth will be gone and the substance will remain. That was Gordon Brown’s speech "A future fair for all". Why? Because it drew the battle lines for the coming election. Brown...
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View 'Cooper: A welcome fall in unemployment, but we have to increase support for the jobless' >

By Brian Duggan The recent edition of Young Fabians magazine Anticipations contains an article from Catherine Stihler, one of the Labour MEPs for Scotland. Catherine argues that Britain must collaborate with EU states both to forge a stable recovery and to build a sustainable social market economy by 2020. The latter is the EU’s response to the Lisbon Agenda (to make the EU the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy by 2010). Vital to achieving this goal is the investment...
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By Michael Merrick Quite often one comes across a totemic issue that not only seems ill-suited to the tradition in which it has nested, but also seems to go against everything it is that particular tradition proclaims itself to stand for. And it seems to me that, for the left, the Living Wage is one of these issues. Now of course, we all know the background behind the idea: the shocking levels of inequality, the people struggling to get by,...
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By Alexandra Kemp We are at our best when we are boldest. The time has come to end the poverty pay of sub-prime jobs. A national Living Wage should be at the top of the new Labour manifesto. Inequality cost lives. Michael Marmot’s report, published yesterday, nails inequality as the key culprit for poor health. Health inequality knocks off 7 years' average life expectancy from people in our poorest communities compared to the richest areas. It reduces healthy life expectancy...
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By Ann Jones AM Those of us concerned with seeking out progressive solutions to the problems that Welsh society faces will recognise a poverty of aspiration as a strong characteristic of some of our most deprived communities. This has the potential to cascade through generations and we know it does in too many parts of Wales. Labour’s fight to end child poverty is rightly a totem point for us all but I believe our schools have an element of untapped...
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The Labour movement column By Anthony Painter / @anthonypainter A couple of years ago I was driving up the A38 – the Birmingham road section approaching Longbridge – for the first time in a while. I actually grew up not far from there and went to school just a mile or so from that section of the road. As I approached what used to be the Rover car factory I felt a visceral sense of loss. Where the Rover factory...
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By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982 Organised by Michael Meacher's Coalition for Labour Victory, which LabourList reported on last November, over 40 Labour MPs have signed a statement calling for Labour’s election campaign to be based on a "radical redistributive programme", including public investment in housing, public services, de-carbonisation and requiring banks to pursue social objectives and support manufacturing. Michael Meacher said: “Labour can win if it is prepared to be radical. Policies aimed at jobs, homes and redistribution will resound...
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By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982 Famously, during the last recession at the end of the 1980s an early 1990s, the then Tory Chancellor said "rising unemployment...is a price worth paying". During this recession, on the other hand, Britain's unemployment is 450,000 lower than experts predicted at the time of the last budget, and is much lower than during previous recessions. This graphic shows the percentage change in unemployment figures between the number of people claiming unemployment benefit now, compared with...
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By Ed Miliband MP / @EdMilibandMP 22 January 2010 Dear Alex, Thank you for your letter about your New Ideas for a Renewed Movement series. I am really sorry for the delay in replying. The New Ideas series was fantastic. I really enjoyed reading the proposals put forward and the debate it generated. I’ve had a look at all of them on the site but I’ll respond to the five in your letter. Increase the National Minimum Wage – as...
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By Andrew Pakes / @Andrew4MK We shouldn’t really be surprised that the Cadbury’s Board has decided to accept its latest takeover offer. The real surprise is how far the media has painted the story as a battle between the plucky independent company and a hostile competitor. Even though we are only on our first steps of recovery from the global recession, international capitalism is still in fine form. This latest takeover should serve as a reminder that markets don’t have...
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