Labour play the blame game
Plus: how New Zealand solved its pay litigation crisis, and Britain has a spending problem
Labour’s new Education Secretary Lucy Powell is getting creative about who to blame for the NEETs crisis. Apparently it’s all Michael Gove’s fault. Well, that’s easier than looking at Labour’s record on youth employment.
Meanwhile Andy Burnham’s mentor Neil Kinnock has urged him to raise capital gains tax to cover his spending commitments. See Gerard Lyons below on why new taxes can’t fix Britain’s public spending problem.
If Burnham wants a better idea to take up, he should read today’s CapX piece by Samuel Williamson. Keir Starmer left his successor a very expensive gift: a consultation expanding the scope of ‘equal value’ rules in the workplace. Williamson explains how New Zealand solved its equal pay claim problem in just three days.
Below you’ll find all the latest pieces from CapX, plus what we’re reading from around the web.
Marc Sidwell
Editor, CapX
Today’s Takes
Fresh thinking from CapX
How to fix the equal value pay crisis
Samuel Williamson
‘New Zealand offers an excellent example of how a partial solution can be implemented without needing to challenge the core principle of ‘equal value’ work.’
On his way out of No 10, Keir Starmer launched a consultation on extending equal pay law to race and disability. The existing sex-based rules have already bankrupted Birmingham and could cost supermarkets £8 billion in back pay. New Zealand faced the same crisis last year – and legislated its way out of it in three days. Read More
Hendon’s last pristine wilderness?
James Ball
‘It shouldn’t come as a surprise when I tell you Barnet Council isn’t planning to operate its new football pitch 24 hours a day.’
In this week’s Nimby Watch, some Hendon residents are determined to protect ‘one of the last pristine wild life spots in London’ from being turned into ‘a 24/7 floodlit eyesore’. What they’re actually objecting to is a council proposal to build a football pitch in the middle of… an area full of football pitches. Read More
Stat of the day
Best of the Web
We can't tax our way out of this
Gerard Lyons, The Times 🔒
‘Suddenly, wealth and other new taxes are being presented as simple answers to Britain’s fiscal pressures. They are not.’
Who will pay for Andy Burnham’s agenda? With growth lacklustre and borrowing already stretched, that leaves taxes – but Labour’s manifesto rules out rises in income tax, National Insurance and VAT. New levies on wealth, property or land won’t deliver either. Instead of squeezing taxpayers harder, it’s time to admit Britain has a spending problem. Read More
Industrial nostalgia is the last thing we need
Eliot Wilson, City AM
‘Fundamentally Reynolds still believes, as does the Prime Minister and as did Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, that state intervention is the key to economic growth and prosperity.’
Jonathan Reynolds is back at the business department, presenting himself as a moderating force, keen to work with the private sector to deliver the government’s promises. But a succession of governments tried exactly this, sitting down with both employers and trade unions in the Sixties and Seventies. The results are nothing to be nostalgic for. Read More
The case for social care insurance
Charlotte Pickles
The Capitalist: Who owns the Moon?
And if you want more...
– Samuel Hughes: ugly architecture = fewer homes (Works in Progress)
– The benefits of an unwritten constitution (UnHerd)
– Wealth taxes: the trillion-dollar illusion (American Spectator)
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