Monthly Archives: November 2014

The news was all about Rochester and Dan the flag man last week, so the National Audit Office report on local government finances didn’t get much of a look in. There was a bit in the Guardian and Russia Today … Continue reading →

The UK Commission for Education and Skills published a report yesterday, endorsed by both the CBI and TUC, with a simple message: If we want the economy to grow, productivity has to improve and if we want productivity to improve, … Continue reading →

Figures from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) published last week have shed a bit more light on the job polarisation question. Those clever people at the Resolution Foundation have added the ONS figures to this interactive gizmo so that you … Continue reading →

Germany held a big party earlier this month to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was 25 years ago but, so far, I still reckon it has been the most important political event of my lifetime. I remember watching the footage, with … Continue reading →

A report by the IFS earlier this week found that the government’s social security cuts had saved nowhere near the amount it expected. The £19bn it had hoped to save turned out to be only £2.5bn. While the cost of … Continue reading →

Last week, the FT ran a series of articles on public spending cuts. Its summary: Half way through 9 years of planned austerity, the FT has uncovered that more than half of government cuts are still to come. And they … Continue reading →

It so happens that Remembrance Sunday in the First World War centenary year coincides with the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Eric Hobsbawm called the period between the two The Short Twentieth Century, the century having been defined … Continue reading →

Despite upbeat predictions from employers, 2014 didn’t turn out to be the year of the pay rise after all. Research from the Resolution Foundation published today shows that surveys of employers tended to overstate the level of pay increases in the economy … Continue reading →

The ONS published its North is Buggered report yesterday. Well, OK, it wasn’t really called that but the North of England Economic Indicators contained a series of scary stats and charts highlighting the northern regions’ decline. (The North is defined as the three most northerly … Continue reading →

This job polarisation thing, does it really look like an hourglass or is it more of a cocktail glass, or even a beer glass? It’s a question I’ve been asked a lot recently. No, really… Both images have been around for a … Continue reading →