John Cole address what it means to “speak truth to power” within the media, and encourages the BBC to hold the government and its ministers to account more often. The BBC, which has now been filled with Conservative appointees, failed to write stories about the covid contracts the government gave out.
Alex Toal writes on Rishi Sunak’s latest ‘Kickstarter’ scheme. So far the £2bn jobs programme has only delivered 12,000 jobs, and only 890 in the Chancellor’s region of Yorkshire.
Alex Toal previews the local elections in South Yorkshire. With elections in all four of the county’s boroughs: Rotherham, Barnsley, Sheffield, and Doncaster, a lot is to play for. A lot may change, in the four major trends in the region. Exciting moves up ahead!
Ellesmere Port’s future as a centre of car manufacturing means building electric vehicles, but this needs greater investment and Vauxhall has already earmarked other plants to build battery-powered cars,
Amazon owns a third of the warehouse space in the country, yet continues to treat its workers poorly. As Granville Williams writes, union action is becoming an increasingly common way of countering this malpractice.
Sarah Hall explains the impact that Brexit has had on financial services. Since the 1 January 2021, UK financial services firms have essentially been operating under a no trade deal Brexit.
Sunak’s answer indicated there has been a fair and open allocation of funding according to some objective criteria relating to need. This is evidently not true. Not only is this not true, but the criteria on which the funding is based is heavily skewed towards advancing the interests of already advantaged, Conservative, provincial towns with low levels of deprivation.
Cole Brothers (John Lewis) in Sheffield is to close, causing local residents to ask what the future holds for the city.
Debbie Eade explains the significance of the new tax agreement between Gibraltar and Spain, also signed by the UK. The two countries will share fiscal information, and Gibraltar will at long last be recognised as an autonomous tax jurisdiction.
Charlie McCarthy explains what impact the chancellor’s cuts to the aid budget will have on organisations like VSO. The charity’s international programs will be halted and UK communities will be harmed as they can no longer volunteer.
Sheffield City Region Mayor Dan Jarvis announces £860m South Yorkshire Renewal Fund. Demonstrating the difference between pork-barrel politics and levelling up through devolved powers.
Andy Brown breaks down the problems with the Chancellor, looking at its impact on care, education, waste management, and the government’s use of back room deals, cheap tricks, and pork barrel politics.
The big con – that public sector cuts offer the only effective route to debt and deficit reduction, through cutting wages and services – has done immeasurable harm to our country. It is not and never has been about fiscal consolidation, but instead serves a hidden libertarian, right-wing agenda that seeks to shrink government and cut worker rights and protections in the name of illusory and bogus freedoms.
The chancellor’s ability to understand economics and read a simple spreadsheet has been brought into serious question. This follows his announcement on Wednesday that the rich and leafy Richmondshire in North Yorkshire is a more deserving case for levelling up money than Barnsley or Sheffield.
this budget is good at sounding good. As for genuine new thinking and policies that seriously face up to the challenges of an economy in crisis, then that has been much harder to detect. This is a chancellor who told us that getting out of the European Union would help business and provide a boost to the British economy. As the slow burn damage of that decision starts to kick in, we’re entitled to have our doubts. Is Sunak’s judgment really to be trusted?
Sunak is neither the people’s chancellor of Conservative media, nor the evil banker of the online left. His budget reveals him as a product of inoffensive corporate Britain: with no courage to cause controversy among the various constituencies of the Conservative base, it has little to offer business or the country.
We need a new philosophy of poverty and wealth that incorporates an understanding of what constitutes a ‘good life’ and an explicit discussion about who is valued in our society and why.
Jack Barnett lays out the support schemes that the government are set to implement to aid the post-pandemic economy. Tackling unemployment will be a central goal, as will tweaking the tax system.
Rishi Sunak’s latest video tries to paint him as the hero of the pandemic, yet he cannot erase his role in accelerating it and preventing the most vulnerable from getting help during it.
Natalie Bennett discusses the importance of having a ‘good’ financial sector, not just a ‘big’ one. She points out that competition usually means someone loses, and instead suggests that a strong, secure financial sector means that everyone wins.
Jake Berry’s new plan is just Thatcherism 2.0, and won’t help the Northern Research Group keep their seats. Thatcher is still broadly hated in the North – is Berry heading for the same fate?
Michael Hindley looks at just how isolated Britain is going to be in post-Brexit trade talks, and the difficulty of ‘rollovers’ in trading. “Brexiters are in for shocks of recognition, as they realise that the key decisions in world trade will be made elsewhere. Washington, Beijing, Tokyo and the World Trade Organization in Geneva. Brexit Britain is truly on its own.”
John Cole calls into question how genuine libertarians have been, particularly during this crisis, when they have done more harm than good. Encouraging more open economies and taking the blame from the shoulders of government and putting it on the people, they have done nothing except exacerbate the situation.
As Martin Brooks notes, fish are not subject to the freedom of movement restrictions that Britain’s people now are. “It’s questionable if the notoriously independently minded fish can be persuaded to change their attitude and behaviour.”
The American videogame retailer ‘GameStop’ was trending in the news and on social media recently. This was the result of millions of, mostly young, members of online forum ‘Reddit’ uniting to talk up the value of GameStop after realising that hedge funds such as Melvin Capital Management had bet against the US retailer.
The prime minister with the least interest in economics of any frontline politician since the war is going to have to try and lead an economic recovery plan for the UK. The prime minister who gave us Brexit is going to have to help to develop an international approach to solving an international problem.
As Alex Toal writes, the people of Yorkshire need economic support more than ever, but their first Chancellor from the region in 45 years ignores their need. Is Rishi Sunak’s stance on Universal Credit a play to the backbenches, that “a vote for Sunak is a vote for fiscal orthodoxy”?
John Cole questions why we have foodbanks in such a prosperous society, and how austerity led to divisions in this country. “Austerity has a lot to answer for and we may note that the two leading protagonists were David Cameron and George Osborne (both dismissed by a third Conservative MP Nadine Dorries as ‘two arrogant posh boys who don’t know the price of milk’).”
Charlie McCarthy writes on the SNP’s opposition to the government’s damaging Brexit deal: “The alignment of international events and incompetence of Westminster leadership is a conjunction of forces that the nationalists in Scotland could only ever have dreamt of”.
The closure of P&O’s Hull to Zeebrugge services marks the start of post-Brexit difficulties for Yorkshire, Lord Newby writes. The move shows just how important it is to ensure regional representation for Yorkshire, as the devolution project stagnates.